Iftattonal 


THE   WALLACE   COLLECTION 


Uniform  with  this  volume 

THE  NATIONAL 
GALLERY 

BY  J.  E.  CRAWFORD  FLITCH 
"The  National  Gallery  has 
formed  the  subject  of  a  book 
on  many  occasions,  but  never  in 
handier  or  more  useful  form  than 
this  little  volume,  which  should 
be  of  the  greatest  use  and  plea- 
sure to  everyone  interested  in  art 
and  our  nation's  pictures. " — Man- 
chester Courier. 

THE  LOUVRE 

BY  E.  E.  RICHARDS 

"  The  author  writes  a  very  inter- 
esting  account  of  the  Palace  of 
the  Louvre  ;  a  guide  far  excelling 
in  interest  and  literary  quality 
those  ordinarily  on  sale." — Scots- 
man. 
Other  volumes  are  in  preparation 


LA  MARQUISE  DE  POMPADOUR 

Boucher 


THE   WALLACE 
COLLECTION 


BY 


FRANK    RUTTER,    B.A. 

Curator  of  the  Leeds  City  Art  Gallery 

AUTHOR  OK 

"ROSSEtti:  PAINTER  AND   MAN  OF  LETTERS," 
'  WHISTLER  :  A  BIOGRAPHY  AND  AN  ESTIMATE 

ETC. 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  AND  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


•  PRINTED   BV 

THE   RIVERSIDE   PRESS    LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 
1913 


SRLF 
liftl 

514390S 


FOREWORD 

OF  many  books  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  this 
little  guide,  by  far  the  most  useful  have  been  the 
official  catalogues  published  by  order  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees.  The  Wallace  Collection  has  been  singu- 
larly fortunate  in  the  matter  of  its  administration. 
Both  the  first  Keeper,  Sir  Claude  Phillips,  and  his 
successor,  Mr  D.  S.  MacColl,  are  gentlemen  who 
enjoy  a  world-wide  respect  and  esteem  for  their 
scholarly  writings  on  art  subjects.  To  them,  and  to 
the  Hon.  Inspector  of  the  Annouries,  Sir  Guy  Laking, 
M.  V.O.,  we  owe  catalogues  which  are  models  of  what 
such  works  should  be. 

Throughout  the  following  pages  reference  is  made 
to  the  sixth  edition  (1910)  of  the  "Catalogue  of 
Furniture  and  Art  Objects,"  for  which  Sir  Claude 
Phillips  was  responsible,  and  to  the  thirteenth 
edition  (1913)  of  the  ''Catalogue  of  Pictures  and 
Drawings,"  which  has  been  substantially  revised,  with 
the  addition  of  a  quantity  of  valuable  new  matter,  by 
5 


FOREWORD 

Mr  D.  S.  MacColl.  In  the  course  of  1912  a  series  of 
sixty  letters  from  the  fourth  Lord  Hertford  to  his 
agent,  Mr  Mawson,  was  acquired  by  the  Trustees, 
and  these  letters,  ranging  from  1848  to  1856,  have 
enabled  Mr  MacColl  to  identify  many  purchases,  to 
correct  certain  attributions  and  to  trace  the  history 
of  very  many  of  the  paintings. 

In  view  of  new  information  drawn  from  these  and 
other  sources,  books  on  this  collection  which  have 
already  been  published  are  rendered  out  of  date,  for 
they  contain  so  many  errors,  misstatements  and  wrong 
attributions  that  they  can  no  longer  be  consulted 
with  any  confidence.  The  present,  therefore,  seems 
to  be  an  opportune  moment  for  the  issue  of  a  hand- 
book which,  without  pretending  to  be  exhaustive  or 
erudite,  aims  at  presenting  in  a  popular  form  the 
results  of  the  most  recent  researches  into  the  history 
of  some  of  the  principal  art  treasures  in  the  Wallace 
Collection. 

In  conclusion,  the  writer  desires  to  acknowledge 
the  very  valuable  assistance  he  has  received  from 
Mr  A.  J.  Sanders  of  Leeds  in  the  chapters  dealing 
with  furniture  and  porcelain. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY  .  .  .  .  .  13 

II.    THE    FORMATION    OF    THE    COLLECTION  .  18 

III.  THE    ITALIAN    SCHOOLS    OF    PAINTING     .  .  34 

IV.  THE  MASTER-PAINTERS  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY         ......  45 

V.    DUTCH    GENRE    PAINTINGS    AND    LANDSCAPES  60 

VI.    EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY    PAINTING   IN  FRANCE 

AND    ENGLAND          .  .  .  .  .  71 

VII.    MODERN    FRENCH    PAINTINGS  ...             88 

VIII.    BRONZES    AND    SCULPTURE  .  .             .                       1 03 

IX.    FRENCH    FURNITURE.             .  .             .             .115 

X.    PORCELAIN           .             .             .  .             .             .140 

XI.    THE    ARMOURY              .             .  .             .             .156 

INDEX       .  165 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE 

1.  BOUCHER.  Madame  de  Pompadour     Frontispiece 

TO   FACE  PAGE 

2.  TITIAN.  Perseus  and  Andromeda          .         .     32 

3.  GUARDI.  The  Rialto 33 

4.  RUBENS.  The  Rainbow  Landscape         .         .     48 

5.  VAN  DYCK.  Philippe  le  Roy  .         .         .49 

ra.  HALS.  Laughing  Cavalier      .-j 

6.  •!  V      .         .     5o 
[b.  VELASQUEZ.   Lady  with  a  Fan  ) 

7.  REMBRANDT.  Artist's  Son,  Titus  .         .57 

8.  BROUWER.  Boor  Asleep        .         .         .         .64 

9.  TERBORCH.  Lady  Reading  a  Letter       .         .     65 

10.  DE  HOOGH.  Interior  with  Woman  and  Boy      72 

11.  VAN  DER  NEER.  Skating  Scene  (No.  217)     .     73 

12.  REYNOLDS.  Nelly  O'Brien    .         .         .         .80 

13.  GAINSBOROUGH.  Miss  Haverfield  .         .81 

(a.  CLOUET.  Miniature  of  Dame  des  Clous  i 

14.  J  8ft 

\b.  HOLBEIN.  Miniature  of  Portrait  of  Artist  / 

15.  FRAGONARD.  Lady  Carving  her  Name  .     89 

9 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  TO  FACE   PAGE 

1 6.  WATTEAU.  Lady  at  her  Toilet      .         .         .96 

17.  LANCRET.  La  Belle  Grecque         .         .         .97 

18.  DELACROIX.  Execution  of  the  Doge  Marino 

Faliero 104 

19.  ROUSSEAU.  Glade  in  the  Forest    .         .         .105 

20.  COYSEVOX.  Bronze  Bust  of  Louis  XIV.  .112 

21.  HOUDON.  Marble  Bust  of  Madame  Victoire 

de  France        .         .  .         .         .113 

22.  Writing-table,   style    Regence.    No.   35   on 

Grand  Staircase      .         .         .         .         .120 

23.  Commode  by  Caffieri.  No.  58,  Gallery  XVI.   121 

24.  Upright  Secretaire.  No.  12,  Gallery  XVIII.   128 

25.  Bureau  Toilette.  No.  20,  Gallery  XVIII.     .  129 

26.  Bureau  by  Riesener.  No.  66,  Gallery  XVI.   1 36 

27.  Commode   by    Riesener.     No.    18,   Gallery 

XVIII 137 

28.  Perfume  Burner.  No.  15,  Gallery  XIX.        .   144 

29.  Sevres  Pot  Pourri  Vase.  No.   162,  Gallery 

XVIII 145 

30.  Sevres  Jardiniere.  No.  146,  Gallery  XII.    .   152 

31.  Sevres  Inkstand.  No.  134,  Gallery  XII.       .   153 

10 


NOTE 

ROMAN  numerals  in  brackets  refer  to  the  number  of 
a  gallery.  Arabic  numerals  refer  to  the  number  of 
a  work.  Thus  (XV.,  281)  denotes  work  No.  281  in 
Gallery  XV. 

The  terms  "  right "  and  "  left "  used  in  describing 
pictures  refer  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  spectator. 

Dates  given  in  brackets  after  an  artist's  name 
refer  respectively  to  the  years  of  his  birth  and  death. 
In  this  connection  the  letter  c  =  circa  (about). 

Except  where  otherwise  stated,  "  Lord  Hertford  " 
=  Richard,  fourth  Marquess  of  Hertford. 


ii 


INTRODUCTORY 

NEVER  yet  has  a  nation  come  into  an  artistic  heritage 
so  rich,  so  varied  and  so  comprehensive  as  the 
bequest  of  Lady  Wallace  to  the  British  nation. 
When  she  died  in  1897  good  judges  roughly 
estimated  the  value  of  her  art  treasures  at 
£2,000,000.  To-day  they  must  be  worth  at  least 
double  that  sum,  and  with  art  works  geometrically 
progressing  in  value  as  they  do  nowadays,  there  is 
no  telling  how  many  millions  sterling  they  may 
represent  in  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  time. 

Of  the  scope  of  the  Wallace  Collection  only  the 
faintest  idea  can  be  given  within  the  limits  of  this 
handbook.  The  paintings  and  drawings  alone 
number  close  on  eight  hundred  and,  important  as 
these  are,  they  form  only  one  section  of  the  whole. 
The  assemblage  of  Sevres  porcelain  is  one  of  the 
finest  in  the  world,  only  equalled  but  not  sur- 
passed by  the  Royal  collections.  French  decorative 
furniture  of  all  kinds,  with  clocks,  candelabra, 

13 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

candlesticks,  etc.,  is  represented  here  with  a  com- 
pleteness and  brilliancy  hardly  to  be  found  in  any 
one  museum,  public  or  private,  in  Europe  or  America. 
The  series  of  eighteenth-century  snuff-boxes  is 
unique ;  the  sculpture  includes  masterpieces  by 
Clodion,  Coysevox,  Falconet,  Houdon  and  Pilon,  as 
well  as  precious  small  bronzes  and  medals  of  the 
earlier  Renaissance  and  other  periods.  The  minia- 
tures show  superb  examples  of  the  greatest  and 
rarest  masters,  the  European  armoury  is  unique  of 
its  kind  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  among  the 
Limoges  and  other  enamels,  the  ivories  and  the 
goldsmith's  work  may  be  found  the  rarest  examples 
of  the  most  exquisite  craftsmanship. 

Yet  with  all  this  wealth  and  magnificence  we 
never  feel  overwhelmed  and  lost  as  we  sometimes 
do  in  other  museums :  at  the  Louvre,  for  example, 
or  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  at  South  Kensington. 
The  Wallace  Collection  is  large  enough  and  compre- 
hensive enough  to  be  practically  inexhaustible,  but 
it  is  not  so  large  that  it  fills  us  with  despair  of  ever 
being  able  to  know  it  all.  Hertford  House  never 
frightens  the  student;  it  never  loses  its  charm,  its 
power  to  soothe  as  well  as  interest.  Elsewhere  we 
are  often  painfully  made  conscious  that  art  galleries 
are  the  prisons  of  art,  as  M.  Robert  de  la  Siseranne 
has  candidly  declared,  but  as  we  ascend  the  great 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

staircase  of  Hertford  House  we  recognise  that  we 
are  entering  no  prison  but  a  Home  of  Beauty. 

This  stately  homeliness,  which  is  so  seductive  a 
feature  of  the  Wallace  Collection,  is  due  in  no 
small  measure  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  who  from  the  very  first  have  made  it  their 
business  to  see  that  the  appearance  of  a  private 
house  should  be  preserved  as  far  as  possible  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  various  objects.  Each  gallery 
is  not  merely  a  reference  library  of  pictures  and  art 
objects,  but  a  handsome  furnished  apartment.  That 
is  why  we  feel  at  our  ease  in  them,  and  when  we 
arrange  to  meet  our  friends,  say  in  Gallery  XVI., 
we  are  not  abashed  but  merely  moved  to  receive 
them  as  if  we  were  monarchs  and  they  ambassadors. 

The  variety  of  objects  to  be  seen  in  every  room 
effectually  dissipates  that  feeling  of  weariness  which 
is  apt  to  be  engendered  by  the  inspection  of  endless 
rows  of  pictures  or  endless  cases  of  porcelain.  The 
beauty  of  any  picture  or  art  object  is  always  en- 
hanced when  it  is  shown  amid  suitable  and  con- 
genial surroundings.  The  system  of  exhibiting  art 
treasures  as  an  ensemble  of  various  objects  similar 
only  in  period  or  nationality  is  undoubtedly  an 
ideal  arrangement,  and  wherever  it  has  been 
adopted  it  has  increased  the  interest  of  the  objects 
assembled. 

15 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Another  contributing  factor  to  the  peculiar  charm 
of  the  Wallace  Collection  is  the  abundance  therein 
of  small  pictures  and  small  art  objects.  The  eye 
is  rested  and  refreshed  when  it  is  turned  from  a 
large  oil  painting  or  a  massive  piece  of  furniture  to 
the  contemplation  of  a  miniature  or  a  small  bronze. 
Further  we  are  taught  here,  as  we  are  taught 
nowhere  else  in  Great  Britain,  that  in  art  what 
matters  is  not  quantity  but  quality.  And  this  is 
a  lesson  which  we  Britons  find  it  exceedingly  hard 
to  learn.  Inability  to  grasp  its  truth  has  led  to 
the  wasting  of  many  thousands  of  pounds,  both 
in  London  and  in  the  provinces,  on  the  acquisition 
for  public  and  private  galleries  of  what  were  thought 
to  be  '•'  important "  pictures  by  reason  of  their  size. 
Now  the  dimensions  of  a  painting  have  nothing 
whatsoever  to  do  with  its  importance.  Many  of  the 
most  important  pictures  in  the  Wallace  Collection 
are  tiny  in  point  of  actual  size.  Clouet's  Dame  de 
Cloux,  Brouwer's  Boor  Asleep,  Fragonard's  Lady 
Carving  her  Name,  Watteau's  Harlequin  and  Columbine 
and  Lady  at  her  Toilet  may  be  cited  as  a  few 
examples. 

Moreover,  who  has  not  revelled  in  the  series  of 

little    gems    in    Gallery    XV.    by    Diaz,    Decamps, 

Couture,  Prudhon  and  other  French  painters  ?     And 

who  has  failed  to  realise  that  all  of  these,  including 

16 


INTRODUCTORY 

Meissonier,  of  course,  were  at  their  best  in  their 
smaller  works  ?  They  may  not  have  been  great 
masters,  and  their  large  paintings,  some  of  which 
may  be  seen  in  the  same  gallery,  are  frequently 
wearisome  and  ineffective ;  but  on  a  smaller  scale 
they  proved  themselves  to  be  truly  great  as  Little 
Masters,  and  we  should  be  deeply  thankful  to  those 
who  formed  this  collection  that  they  more  often 
bought  the  little  pictures  that  are  great  than  the 
big  pictures  which  are  little. 


II 

THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  COLLECTION 

IN  Gallery  XVI.  you  will  see  two  portraits  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  Frances  Seymour-Conway,  Countess 
of  Lincoln  (33)  and  Lady  Elizabeth  Seymour-Conway 
(31),  the  fourth  and  fifth  daughters  respectively  of 
the  first  Marquess  of  Hertford.  Finer  and  more 
impressive  examples  of  Reynolds  may  be  found  in 
these  galleries,  but  these  two  paintings  deserve  our 
special  notice  because,  so  far  as  we  know  at  present, 
they  are  the  foundation-stones  on  which  the  Wallace 
Collection  has  been  built.  They  were  not  acquired 
with  that  object,  however.  The  first  Marquess  had 
no  idea  of  founding  an  art  collection ;  all  he  wanted 
was  portraits  of  his  daughters  by  the  foremost 
painter  of  the  day,  and  he  little  knew  that  in  giving 
Sir  Joshua  the  commissions  he  was  taking  the  first 
step  towards  erecting  a  mighty  monument  to  the 
fame  of  the  Seymours. 

On   the   part   played  by  this   family  in  English 
history  it   is   unnecessary  to   dwell.    They  rose   to 
18 


FORMATION   OF   THE   COLLECTION 

eminence  when  Jane  Seymour  married  Henry  VIII. 
and  her  eldest  brother,  Edward,  was  created  Earl  of 
Hertford.  On  his  nephew's  accession  to  the  throne 
as  Edward  VI.,  Hertford  became  Duke  of  Somerset 
and  Lord  Protector  of  England.  Later  he  fell  from 
power  and  was  executed,  as  also  was  his  brother 
Thomas,  who  had  married  Catherine  Parr.  His  son 
and  grandson  were  claimants  to  the  throne — as 
descendants  by  marriage  from  Henry  VIII. — and 
though  the  family  led  a  chequered  existence  through 
the  reigns  of  the  Stuarts,  Edward  Seymour  avenged 
family  grievances  when  he  headed  the  opposition 
against  James  II.  and  joined  his  fortunes  to  those  of 
William  of  Orange. 

In  1750  the  earldom  of  Hertford  became  extinct 
with  the  death  of  the  seventh  Duke  of  Somerset, 
but  the  title  was  revived  in  the  person  of  Francis 
Seymour-Conway,  who  a  year  before  his  death  in 
1794  was  created  Earl  of  Yarmouth  and  first 
Marquess  of  Hertford.  Allan  Ramsay's  portrait  of 
George  IV.  may  possibly  have  belonged  to  him,  as 
well  as  the  two  Reynolds  portraits  already  mentioned, 
but  what  is  perhaps  more  interesting  to  note,  in 
view  of  subsequent  events,  is  that  the  first  Marquess 
was  Ambassador  to  France  from  1763  to  1765,  and 
so  inaugurated  that  connection  with  Paris  which  was 
continued  and  developed  by  his  heirs. 

19 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

To  his  son,  the  second  Marquess,  can  be  definitely 
traced  the  purchase,  in  1810,  of  two  important 
pictures — the  world-famous  Nelly  O'Brien  (38)  of 
Reynolds — which  he  picked  up  for  £64>,  Is. — and 
Romney's  "Perdita"  Robinson  (37),  which  cost  him 
twenty  guineas.  Whether  he  purchased  these  for 
artistic  or  iconographical  reasons  can  never  be  known 
now,  but  if  this  Lord  Hertford  was  not  a  great 
collector,  at  least  he  paved  the  way  for  collecting 
by  marrying  two  heiresses  in  succession.  The 
Seymours  had  a  knack  of  making  profitable  marriages 
— they  had  already  absorbed  the  Conway  title  and 
estates — and  the  example  of  the  second  Marquess 
was  followed  by  his  only  surviving  child. 

Of  this  child,  Francis  Charles  Seymour-Conway, 
Lord  Yarmouth,  and  afterwards  third  Marquess  of 
Hertford,  K.C.,  it  may  be  said  that  he  had  good 
taste  in  art — but  in  little  else.  He  was  born  in 
1777,  his  mother  being  his  father's  second  wife  and 
an  intimate  friend  of  the  Prince  Regent.  The 
latter  fact  procured  him  the  position  of  Vice- 
Chamberlain  in  the  Regent's  Household,  and 
throughout  his  life  he  had  great  influence  with  the 
Prince.  In  1798  he  married  a  young  lady  whose 
mother  was  the  Marchesa  Fagniani  but  whose  father 
was  never  definitely  identified.  The  honour  was 
claimed  by  two  men,  both  of  them  enormously 

20 


FORMATION   OF   THE   COLLECTION 

wealthy,  a  Mr  George  Selwyn  and  William,  fourth 
Duke  of  Queensberry,  familiarly  known  as  "  Old  Q."  : 
and  to  support  his  contentions  each  made  a  point 
of  leaving  the  young  lady  a  fortune,  whereby  the 
Marquess  gained  to  the  tune  of  something  like  a 
million  sterling.  A  moralist  with  a  turn  for  statistics 
might  find  it  interesting  to  calculate  what  proportion 
of  the  treasures  of  the  Wallace  Collection  we  enjoy 
to-day  as  an  indirect  result  of  the  frailty  of  the 
Marchesa  Fagniani. 

Wealthy,  witty  and  deplorably  dissolute,  the 
third  Marquess  of  Hertford  was  an  outstanding 
figure  in  the  London  society  of  his  day.  What 
manner  of  man  he  was,  Thackeray  has  shown  us  in 
"  Vanity  Fair."  For  "  Gaunt  House  "  read  "  Hertford 
House,"  for  "Steyne  "  read  "Hertford,"  and  in  the 
persecutor  of  Becky  Sharp  we  may  recognise  a  true 
portrait  of  our  collector. 

He  began  his  apprenticeship  to  art  at  an  early 
age,  for  as  Lord  Yarmouth  he  assisted  the  Prince 
Regent  in  forming  a  collection  of  pictures,  mostly  by 
Dutch  masters.  Later  in  life  he  had  built  for  him 
in  Regent's  Park  a  villa,  which  he  proceeded  to  fill 
with  decorative  furniture,  bronzes,  marbles  and  a 
few  pictures.  Some  of  the  last  were  presents  from 
His  Royal  Highness.  Sir  Lionel  Cust  has  discovered, 
from  an  entry  in  one  of  the  daybooks  of  Old  Carlton 
21 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

House,  that  Gainsborough's  portrait  of  Mrs  Robinson 
— Perdita  (42) — was  sent  to  the  Earl  of  Yarmouth  by 
order  of  the  Prince  Regent  on  13th  April  1818. 
Another  gift  from  the  same  source  was  Hoppner's 
George,  Prince  of  Wales,  which  the  Regent  had 
purchased  with  others  from  the  artist's  widow  in 
1810. 

But  what  was  probably  the  greatest  masterpiece 
of  painting  in  this  villa  is  no  longer  to  be  found 
in  the  Wallace  Collection.  Fortunately  we  need 
not  bewail  its  absence,  since  the  work,  The  Vision  oj 
St  Helena,  by  Veronese,  is  now  one  of  the  chief 
glories  of  the  National  Gallery.  It  is  curious, 
however,  that  it  should  have  slipped  out  of  the 
collection.  When  the  contents  of  this  villa  were 
sold  in  1855,  after  the  owner's  death,  his  son,  the 
fourth  Marquess,  bought  in  most  of  the  pictures,  and 
a  letter  exists  instructing  an  agent  to  bid  for  this 
picture  but  to  give  "not  more  than  £40  or  £50." 
This  limitation  reads  strangely  to-day,  and  had 
the  sale  taken  place  half-a-century  later,  and  the 
Veronese  departed  to  Germany  or  the  United  States, 
we  should  mourn  more  deeply  the  unaccountable 
shortsightedness  of  Lord  Hertford  in  this  particular 
instance. 

To  return  to  his  father,  the  "  old  Marquess,"  as 
I  shall  style  him  henceforward,  he  bought  Dutch 

22 


FORMATION   OF   THE   COLLECTION 

paintings  for  himself  as  well  as  for  the  Prince 
Regent.  To  him  the  Wallace  Collection  owes, 
among  other  things,  the  splendid  River  Scene  with 
View  of  Dordrecht  (138)  and  two  other  Cuyps, 
Jan  Steen's  Village  Alchemist  (XIII.,  209),  Adriaen 
Van  Ostade's  Interior  with  Peasants  (XIV.,  169), 
Isack  van  Ostade's  Winter  Scene  (XVI.,  73)  and 
Wouwermann's  Camp  Scene  (XIV.,  193),  all  of  which 
are  admirable  examples  of  their  respective  authors. 
Two  other  notable  purchases  by  the  old  Marquess 
were  Van  Dyck's  Portrait  of  the  Artist  as  the  Shepherd 
Paris  (XVI.,  35)  and  Titian's  Perseus  and  Andromeda 
(XVI.,  11),  discovered  "skied"  in  a  bathroom  at 
Hertford  House  by  the  late  Keeper,  Sir  Claude 
Phillips,  in  1900*  and  now  recognised  as  one  of  the 
chief  treasures  of  the  collection. 

The  third  Marquess  got  together  the  nucleus 
of  a  great  art  collection,  but  he  was  first  and 
foremost  a  man  of  the  world.  He  had  been  in 
Parliament,  a  captive  of  Napoleon  at  Verdun  for 
three  years  after  the  Emperor's  breach  of  the  Treaty 
of  Amiens,  a  plenipotentiary  for  Fox  on  his  release, 
and  in  1 827,  as  Envoy  Extraordinary,  he  had  headed 
a  Garter  Mission  to  the  Tsar  of  Russia.  At  his 
death,  in  1842,  he  was  supposed  to  be  worth  two 
millions  sterling. 

His    eldest    son    and    heir,    Richard    Seymour- 

23 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Conway,  Viscount  Beauchamp,  born  22nd  February 
1800,  was  first  and  foremost  a  collector.  Military, 
political  and  diplomatic  life — each  he  tried,  and  each 
he  found  distasteful.  After  holding  a  commission 
in  the  22nd  Dragoons,  in  1817  he  was  attached 
to  the  British  Embassy  in  Paris ;  two  years  later 
he  was  elected  to  Parliament,  from  which  he  retired 
in  1826.  He  had  another  try  at  diplomacy  in 
Constantinople,  but  as  soon  as  he  came  into  the 
title,  in  1842,  he  established  himself  in  Paris  and 
devoted  himself  to  the  collection  of  art  objects. 
From  his  flat  at  No.  2  rue  Laffitte,  where  he  led 
a  quiet  and  retired  life,  he  directed  operations 
which  filled  with  art  treasures  the  houses  in 
Berkeley  Square  and  Manchester  Square — which 
he  owned  but  rarely  visited — as  well  as  his  own 
apartment  and  the  Pavilion  of  Bagatelle  in  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne. 

In  many  respects  the  fourth  Marquess  was  the 
very  reverse  of  the  third.  The  old  Marquess  loved 
display  and  ostentation ;  the  new  Lord  Hertford 
hated  a  crowd.  He  seldom  entered  a  saleroom, 
and  conducted  his  bidding  through  agents.  Happily 
his  London  agent,  S.  M.  Mawson,  was  a  remarkable 
man,  gifted  probably  with  a  far  finer  taste  than 
Lord  Hertford  himself.  In  fact,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  it  is  to  Mr  Mawson  that  the  Wallace  Collection 
24 


FORMATION   OF   THE   COLLECTION 

owes  many  of  its  finest  pictures.  He  won  the 
confidence  of  his  patron,  who  had  the  good  sense 
to  be  guided  by  the  advice  of  this  expert  even  when 
it  ran  contrary  to  his  own  inclinations.  It  was 
through  Mr  Mawson's  good  offices  that  fine  examples 
of  the  early  Italians,  of  Rembrandt,  of  Rubens  and 
of  Velasquez  were  added  to  the  collection.  Some 
of  these  Lord  Hertford  never  saw,  and  he  grace- 
fully acknowledges  what  is  due  to  his  agent  in 
a  letter  which  speaks  of  "  our  Collection,  which 
owes  a  great  deal  of  its  splendour  to  the  interest 
you  have  always  taken  in  it." 

"  I  only  like  pleasing  pictures,"  Lord  Hertford 
naively  confessed,  and  it  is  to  his  credit  that  he 
found  so  much  that  was  pleasing  among  the  works 
of  the  great  French  artists  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  of  his  own  time.  His  greatest  discovery  was 
Bonington,  by  whom  he  secured  no  less  than  thirty- 
six  pictures  and  drawings.  "  I  like  this  master  very 
much,  though  he  is  not  much  admired  in  our 
country,"  he  writes.  He  bought  nine  pictures  by 
Watteau,  and  nine  by  Guardi,  and  here  again  he 
showed  a  fine  taste  ahead  of  that  of  his  day. 

But  his  judgment  was  not  always  impeccable. 
It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  it  was  that  the  man 
who  apparently  appreciated  "quality"  in  paint  so 
keenly  as  to  buy  twenty-eight  works  by  Decamps 

25 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

could  have  so  strong  an  admiration  for  Horace 
Vernet  as  to  acquire  twenty-nine  of  his  works. 
Again,  though  he  bought  twenty-one  Greuzes,  four- 
teen Paters,  eleven  Lancrets,  and  eight  Fragonards, 
he  missed  Chardin  altogether,  and  thereby  his 
collection  was  the  poorer.  And  he  also  bought 
eleven  pictures  and  drawings  by  Bellange  and 
ten  by  Roqueplan — and  thereby  it  was  none  the 
richer. 

We  get  a  clue  to  Lord  Hertford's  private  tastes 
in  his  thirteen  Murillos,  his  sixteen  Meissoniers, 
his  twelve  Delaroches.  It  was  a  cultivated,  scholarly 
taste,  but  not  a  brilliant,  unerring  judgment.  Of 
this  he  was  himself  probably  well  aware,  and  since 
it  was  his  desire  to  make  his  collection  repre- 
sentative and  not  limit  it  to  what  he  liked  person- 
ally, he  allowed  his  agents  a  large  discretion, 
and  this  they  used  greatly  to  his  advantage. 
Among  these  agents  the  principal  two  were 
S.  M.  Mawson,  in  London,  and  Richard  Wallace, 
who  lived  with  him  in  Paris. 

Who  was  Sir  Richard  Wallace?  He  was  born 
in  London  on  the  26th  of  July  1818,  but  who  his 
parents  were  nobody  knows.  Two  theories  are 
current  about  him.  According  to  the  first,  which 
is  most  widespread  in  vulgar  opinion,  he  was 
a  natural  son  of  the  fourth  Marquess  by  some  young 
26 


FORMATION   OF   THE   COLLECTION 

woman  in  the  service  of  the  household.  It  should 
be  noted  that  the  difference  in  age  between  the 
fourth  Lord  Hertford  and  Richard  Wallace  was  only 
eighteen  years,  but  this,  of  course,  is  not  an  insuper- 
able objection  to  the  theory. 

Another  theory  is  that  he  was  an  illegitimate 
son  of  the  last  Marchioness  of  Hertford,  nee  Maria 
Fagniani.  This  theory  is  far  more  plausible.  Maria, 
Marchioness  of  Hertford,  seems  to  have  taken  after 
her  mother.  She  was  supposed  to  have  had  three 
children  by  her  husband :  one  daughter,  who  died 
nine  months  after  her  marriage  to  a  M.  de  Chevigne  ; 
and  two  sons :  Richard,  the  fourth  Marquess,  and 
Lord  Henry  Seymour,  who  was  born  in  1805  and 
died  in  1859.  Common  rumour,  however/  said  the 
second  son  was  no  Seymour  but  in  truth  the  son 
of  Count  Casimir  de  Montrond.  Lord  Henry's  chief 
claim  to  fame  was  as  founder  of  the  French  Jockey 
Club,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the 
uncertainty  of  his  parentage  makes  that  of  Sir 
Richard  Wallace  any  the  more  certain.  Still,  in 
favour  of  the  second  theory  as  against  the  first, 
it  must  be  noted  that  Richard  Wallace,  or  Richard 
Jackson  as  he  was  first  called,  was  a  proteg6  of  the 
Marchioness  Maria  before  he  became  the  proteg6 
of  Lord  Hertford.  Sir  Walter  Armstrong  accepts 
the  second  theory  in  his  article  for  the  Dictionary 
27 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

of  National  Biography,  and  of  the  two  it  is  cer- 
tainly the  more  credible. 

"Monsieur  Richard,"  as  he  was  called,  lived  in 
Paris  among  the  artists  and  writers  of  the  Second 
Empire  and  made  an  art  collection  of  his  own,  which 
he  weeded  out  to  a  great  extent  by  a  sale  in  1857. 
In  the  August  of  1870,  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
war,  Lord  Hertford  died.  He  had  never  married, 
and  while  the  title  and  entailed  estates  passed  to  a 
cousin,  his  art  collection,  with  all  his  unentailed 
property,  was  bequeathed  to  Richard  Wallace. 
Throughout  the  siege  "  Monsieur  Richard  "  remained 
in  Paris;  he  organised  three  ambulance  corps, founded 
and  endowed  the  British  hospital  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  his  benefactor,  Lord  Hertford,  and 
subscribed  £4000  towards  a  fund  for  the  relief  of 
victims  of  the  bombardment.  He  is  said  to  have 
spent  £100,000  in  charities  during  the  siege  of 
Paris,  and  he  also  gave  a  hundred  drinking-fountains 
to  the  city,  but  after  the  Commune  he  probably 
thought  it  advisable  to  transfer  the  greater  part  of 
his  collection  to  London,  and  soon  made  preparations 
for  so  doing. 

In  February  1871  he  married  Mademoiselle  Julie 

Amelie  Charlotte  Castelnau,  daughter  of  a  French 

officer,  by  whom  he  had  one  son,  who  died  before 

his  father.     On  Christmas  Eve  of  the  same  year  he 

28 


FORMATION   OF  THE    COLLECTION 

was  created  a  baronet,  and  the  following  year,  while 
a  home  was  being  prepared  for  them  in  London,  he 
lent  most  of  his  paintings  and  other  art  objects  to 
the  Bethnal  Green  Museum,  where  they  remained 
till  April  1875. 

Meanwhile  Sir  Richard  was  making  structural 
alterations  in  the  big  house  on  one  side  of  Manchester 
Square.  This  had  been  built  about  1776  by  the 
Duke  of  Manchester,  and  was  still  known  as 
Manchester  House,  though  after  the  Duke's  death 
it  passed  out  of  the  family  and  served  first  as  the 
Spanish,  then  as  the  French  Embassy.  Later  it 
passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Hertford  family, 
but  the  name  was  not  changed  to  Hertford  House 
till  it  came  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Richard  Wallace. 
Under  his  directions  a  new  wing  was  built  on  the 
garden  which  had  been  behind  the  house,  these 
additions  consisting  of  the  long  gallery  (XVI.)  on  the 
first  floor,  the  side  galleries  (IV.,  VII.,  XV.  and 
XVII.)  on  the  ground  and  first  floors,  with  stables 
and  coach-houses  under  the  long  gallery. 

It  is  difficult  to  form  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
extent  of  the  collection  formed  by  the  last  Lord 
Hertford,  because  a  great  part  of  it  was  destroyed  by 
a  fire  which  broke  out  at  the  Pantechnicon  in  1874. 
All  we  know  is  that,  great  as  it  was,  extensive  and 
valuable  additions  were  made  to  it  by  Sir  Richard 
29 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Wallace.  The  rich  collection  of  European  arms  and 
armour  was  entirely  his  creation.  He  also  acquired 
a  great  number  of  the  Renaissance  bronzes,  jewellery, 
goldsmith's  work  and  other  art  objects  of  this  and 
later  periods. 

With  regard  to  paintings,  his  most  notable 
additions  were  Corot's  Macbeth  and  the  Witches  (XV., 
281),  Rousseau's  Glade  in  the  Forest  of  Fonlainebleau 
(XV.,  283)  and  probably  the  three  little  gems  by 
Diaz  (XV.,  266,  268,  312),  as  well  as  the  majority  of 
the  early  Italian,  Flemish  and  French  works  in 
Gallery  III.  Of  these  last,  Beccafumi's  Judith  with 
the  Head  of  Holofernes  (525)  and  Vincenzo  Foppa's 
Boy  Reading  (538)  are  of  special  importance. 
Another  important  painting  once  in  his  collection 
was  Terborch's  Peace  oj  Munster,  which  he  presented 
to  the  National  Gallery,  of  which  he  was  a  trustee. 

Though  he  made  Hertford  House  his  English 
home,  and  arranged  his  art  collection  there  after  its 
removal  from  Bethnal  Green  Museum  in  1875,  Sir 
Richard  Wallace  spent  the  last  four  years  of  his  life 
in  Paris ;  and  when  he  died  there,  on  20th  July  1 890, 
some  people  feared  that  he  might  leave  his  great 
collection  to  the  French  nation.  There  is  no 
evidence,  however,  that  he  had  any  such  intention. 
The  whole  of  his  collection  he  left  unconditionally 
to  Lady  Wallace,  and  after  this  lady's  death,  on  l6th 

3° 


FORMATION   OF   THE    COLLECTION 

February  1897,  it  became  known  that  by  a  will 
dated  23rd  May  1894  the  widow  of  Sir  Richard 
Wallace  had  made  the  magnificent  bequest  of  these 
art  treasures  to  the  British  nation. 

The  generosity  of  this  action  is  the  greater  when 
we  remember  that  Lady  Wallace  was  of  French 
nationality  and  would  have  been  quite  justified  in 
leaving  the  collection  to  France.  It  is  perhaps  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  course  of  action  she  took 
was  to  a  great  extent  inspired  by  the  disinterested 
counsel  of  her  chief  confidential  adviser,  Mr  John 
Murray  Scott,  who  had  been  her  husband's  secretary 
and  intimate  friend  and  was  the  residuary  legatee  of 
Lady  Wallace's  estate.  . 

Shortly  before  his  last  illness  Lord  Hertford  had 
been  attended  by  an  English  doctor  practising  in 
Boulogne,  a  Dr  Scott,  whose  son  attracted  the  notice 
of  Sir  Richard  Wallace.  This  son,  John  Murray 
Scott,  was  afterwards  engaged  by  Richard  Wallace 
as  his  secretary,  and  aided  the  latter  in  his  charitable, 
artistic  and  other  undertakings.  His  qualities, 
abilities  and  kindly  disposition  gained  him  the 
affection  of  both  Sir  Richard  and  Lady  Wallace,  who 
in  time  came  to  look  upon  him  more  as  an  adopted 
son  than  as  an  official  of  the  household.  Had  he 
been  of  an  intriguing  nature  he  might  have  been 
the  owner  of  Hertford  House  and  its  contents,  and 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

his  public-spirited  action  in  persuading  Lady 
Wallace  to  make  her  great  bequest  was  acknow- 
ledged when  for  his  services  to  the  nation  John 
Murray  Scott  was  created  baronet  and  K.C.B.  and 
appointed  a  trustee  of  the  National  Gallery  as  well 
as  of  the  Wallace  Collection. 

Lady  Wallace  stipulated  in  her  will  that  Mr 
Murray  Scott  should  be  one  of  the  trustees  of  the 
collection,  and  she  also  made  two  other  conditions : 

1.  That   the    Government    for  the    time   being 
should  agree  to   give  a  site  in  the  central  part  of 
London,  and   build  thereon  a   special   museum   to 
contain  it,  and  that  the  collection  should  always  be 
kept  together   unmixed  with  other  objects  of  art, 
and  be  styled  "  The  Wallace  Collection." 

2.  That   the    Louis   Quatorze   balustrade   to   the 
Great  Staircase  at  Hertford  House  should  be  used 
in  the  new  museum.1 

The  first  condition  gave  rise  to  some  discussion, 
and  the  Treasury  in  May  1897  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  consider  how  the  collection  might  best  be 
housed.  The  Marquess  of  Lansdowne  was  the 
chairman  of  this  committee,  and  the  other  members 

1  This  forged  iron  and  gilt  bronze  balustrade  was  formerly  at 
the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  in  Paris,  but  was  removed  in  the 
time  of  Napoleon  III.  The  interlaced  L's  throughout  the 
design  indicate  that  it  was  made  originally  for  Louis  XIV. 

32 


PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 

Titian 


FORMATION    OF   THE    COLLECTION 

were  Lord  Redesdale  (now  Chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees),  Sir  William  Harcourt,  Sir  Walter  Arm- 
strong, Sir  Francis  Mowatt,  Mr  Alfred  de  Rothschild, 
Sir  E.  J.  Poynter  and  Mr  Alfred  Waterhouse.  This 
committee,  with  the  exception  of  Sir  E.  J.  Poynter, 
unanimously  recommended  that  the  collection  should 
remain  at  Hertford  House,  the  apartments  being 
suitably  altered  for  the  purpose.  Sir  E.  J.  Poynter 
favoured  the  housing  of  the  collection  in  a  new 
building  near  the  National  Gallery.  The  purchase 
and  adaptation  of  Hertford  House  did  not  strictly 
comply  with  the  terms  of  the  bequest,  but  the  law 
officers  of  the  Crown  held  that  the  Government 
might  be  justified  in  so  doing  if  Mr  Murray  Scott, 
the  only  person  who  could  claim  under  the  will, 
would  bind  himself  and  his  heirs  to  treat  this  action 
as  a  satisfactory  fulfilment  of  Lady  Wallace's  condi- 
tions. This  Mr  Murray  Scott  agreed  to  do,  and  on 
the  22nd  of  June  1900  the  Wallace  Collection  was 
opened  to  the  public  at  Hertford  House. 

Sir  John  Murray  Scott  was  the  first  Chairman  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  retained  the  chairmanship 
till  17th  January  1912,  when  he  suddenly  died  of 
heart  failure  while  on  a  visit  to  Hertford  House. 


33 


Ill 

THE   ITALIAN   SCHOOLS   OF   PAINTING 

FEW  people  go  to  the  Wallace  Collection  to  study 
the  earlier  schools  of  art.  It  contains  comparatively 
few  Italian  paintings,  and  our  memory  of  its  pictures 
is  fully  occupied  with  thoughts  of  the  great  masters 
of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  wonderful  series 
of  works  which  form  so  glorious  a  monument  to  the 
artistic  genius  of  France.  "  Primitive  masters," 
confessed  Lord  Hertford,  "  I  have  not  yet  adopted, 
and,"  he  added,  "  I  don't  think  I  ever  will." 
Nevertheless,  thanks  probably  to  Sir  Richard 
Wallace  and  Mr  Mawson,  a  few  primitives  crept  into 
the  collection,  and  are  to  be  found  mostly  in  the 
third  gallery  to  the  extreme  right  of  the  entrance 
hall  as  you  enter  the  museum. 

The  earliest  school  of  painting  represented  is  that 
of  Siena,  the  little  hill  town  which  rivalled  Florence 
in  the  dawn  of  Italian  art.  Its  founder,  Duccio,  was 
probably  born  five  or  six  years  before  Giotto,  and 
scholars  have  yet  to  settle  whether  it  originated 

34 


THE   ITALIAN    SCHOOLS 

from  Byzantium,  France,  or  a  revival  of  native 
Etruscan  genius.  The  little  panel  of  The  Virgin  and 
Child  tvith  St  Peter  and  St  John  the  Baptist  (III.,  550) 
has  recently  been  ascribed  to  Paolo  di  Giovanni  Mei. 
It  shows  the  influence  of  Lippo  Memmi,  to  whom  it 
was  formerly  attributed,  who  in  turn  was  influenced 
by  his  brother-in-law,  Simone  Martini  (c.  1283-1344), 
the  friend  of  Petrarch.  The  author  of  our  panel, 
who  flourished  in  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  had  no  knowledge  of  perspective  or  of  the 
subtleties  of  modelling,  but  to  many  art  lovers  the 
naive  sincerity  and  deep  religious  feeling  expressed 
in  these  early  works  give  them  a  force  and  charm 
often  absent  from  more  learned  but  more  worldly 
paintings. 

A  later  example  of  the  Sienese  school,  painted 
about  a  century  later,  is  the  little  panel  of  St  Jerome 
chastising  himself  (III.,  543).  This  is  much  more 
realistic,  and  was  formerly  attributed  to  Andrea  del 
Castagno,  a  Florentine  influenced  by  the  realism  of 
Donatello,  but  it  has  now  been  definitely  assigned  to 
Benvenuto  da  Siena  (c.  1436-1520),  author  of  the 
fine  triptych  at  the  National  Gallery.  Almost  the 
last  of  the  Sienese  artists,  Domenico  Beccafumi 
(1486-1551),  a  contemporary  of  Michael  Angelo,  is 
also  represented  here  by  his  early  but  interesting 
panel,  Judith  with  the  Head  of  H olof ernes  (III.,  525). 

35 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

For  centuries  past  the  Venetian  school  has  been 
celebrated  for  its  colour,  and  we  get  more  than  a 
hint  of  what  is  to  follow  from  the  glowing  richness 
of  St  Rock  (III.,  527),  by  that  early  master,  Carlo 
Crivelli  (c.  1430-1595).  "The  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century  shows  no  art  more  intense  in 
conviction  than  that  of  Crivelli,"  says  our  catalogue, 
"or  more  brilliantly  decorative  after  its  peculiar 
fashion."  And  Mr  Bernhard  Berenson  waxes  still 
more  enthusiastic  :  "  He  takes  rank  with  the  most 
genuine  artists  of  all  times  and  countries,  and  does 
not  weary  even  when  great  masters  grow  tedious." 
This  panel,  which  probably  formed  part  of  a  much 
larger  altar-piece,  is  a  fine  example  of  Crivelli's  best 
style. 

Another  early  Venetian  master  splendidly  repre- 
sented here  is  Cima  da  Conegliano,  who  died  about 
1517.  The  panel  of  St  Catherine  of' Alexandria  (XVI., 
1)  was  bought  by  Lord  Hertford  in  1859,  and  is  the 
most  important  example  of  this  master  in  England. 
Originally  it  formed  the  central  portion  of  the  altar- 
piece  at  the  church  of  S.  Rocco  at  Mestre,  near 
Venice.  The  two  wings,  St  Sebastian  and  St  Rock, 
are  now  in  the  Strasburg  Museum,  while  the  lunette, 
The  Virgin  and  Child  with  SS.  Dominic  and  Francis, 
was  sold  at  Christie's  (No.  17,  3rd  July  1912)  to  Mr 
Lang  ton  Douglas. 

36 


THE   ITALIAN    SCHOOLS 

A  whole  romance  might  be  written  round  the 
fresco  painting  known  as  A  Boy  Reading  (III.,  538), 
formerly  catalogued  as  by  Bramantino  but  now 
ascertained  to  be  the  work  of  Vincenzo  Foppa,  who 
founded  the  Milanese  school  in  the  latter  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  Foppa  was  commissioned  by  that 
great  art  patron,  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  to  decorate  the 
walls  of  his  bank  in  the  Via  de'  Bossi,  Milan,  and 
,this  charming  work  is  a  fragment  of  what  he  painted 
there.  It  was  still  in  its  place  and  mentioned  by 
contemporary  writers  as  late  as  1 862,  and  some  time 
after  this  it  was  saved  from  inevitable  destruction 
by  being  cut  clean  out  of  the  wall.  As  a  panel  of 
plaster  it  found  its  way  to  Paris,  where  it  was  probably 
sold  by  Vicomte  de  Tauzia,  Keeper  of  Pictures  at 
the  Louvre,  to  Sir  Richard  Wallace.  The  identity 
of  the  boy  is  uncertain.  He  has  been  called  Gian 
Galeazzo  Sforza,  but  since  this  youth  was  only  born 
in  14-69,  and  since  the  fifteenth-century  writer, 
Filarete,  tells  us  definitely  that  Foppa  was  working 
on  some  of  the  frescoes  for  the  Banco  Mediceo  in 
1463,  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  fresco  was  painted 
so  much  later  as  the  age  of  the  boy,  if  Galeazzo, 
would  imply.  On  the  other  hand,  Filarete  informs 
us  that  according  to  the  contract  Foppa  was  to 
adorn  another  part  of  the  building  with  "  portraits  of 
the  Duke  Francesco  Sforza,  of  his  illustrious  consort 

37 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

and  their  sons,"  so  this  may  be  one  of  the  Sforzas, 
if  not  Gian  Galeazzo.  But  Mr  MacColl  suggests  "  it 
is  more  likely  that  it  is  emblematic  of  education  or 
eloquence;  it  recalls  illustrations  of  lecture-rooms 
in  early  printed  Venetian  books." 

Bernardino  Luini  (c.  1475-1535),  another  Milanese 
painter,  is  represented  by  four  works,  of  which  the 
most  notable  is  unquestionably  The  Virgin  of  the 
Columbine  (XVI.,  10).  This  was  bought  by  Lord 
Hertford  as  a  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  exhibited 
under  his  name  at  Bethnal  Green. 

The  ups  and  downs  of  collecting  are  well  illus- 
trated when  we  compare  this  Luini,  bought  as 
a  Leonardo,  with  the  most  famous  Italian  picture 
in  the  collection,  Titian's  Perseus  and  Andromeda 
(XVI.,  11),  presumably  bought  as  a  school-piece.  It 
was  purchased  by  Lord  Yarmouth,  the  third 
Marquess,  in  1815,  for  £362.  Some  time  in  the 
fifties  or  earlier  it  was  seen  by  Dr  Waagen,  and 
by  that  time  it  had  got  attributed  to  Veronese. 
In  his  monumental  work  *  Dr  Waagen  accepts  this 
attribution,  but  comments :  "  The  conception  is  very 
animated  .  .  .  the  colouring  of  a  power  seldom 
seen  in  his  pictures  and  approaching  Titian.  The 
landscape  also,  which  occupies  a  large  portion  of  the 
picture,  is  admirable." 

1  "  The  Treasures  of  Art  in  Great  Britain."    1854-1857. 
38 


THE   ITALIAN   SCHOOLS 

After  this  someone  appeared  to  think  that  it 
approached  closer  to  Titian  than  to  Veronese,  and 
so  it  was  written  down  in  the  inventory  of  the 
collection  as  "School  of  Titian."  It  was  not 
thought  worth  showing  at  Bethnal  Green,  and  was 
so  lightly  esteemed  that  it  was  hung  in  a  bath- 
room— and  high  up  even  there.  Hence  it  was 
happily  rescued  from  oblivion  in  1900  by  Sir  Claude 
Phillips,  who  recognised  it  to  be  an  authentic  work 
from  Titian's  own  hand. 

It  is  extraordinary  that  it  should  have  been  lost 
sight  of  for  so  many  years,  since  it  was  sold  from 
the  Orleans  Collection  to  a  London  dealer  in  1 798  ; 
it  is  not  as  if  it  were  an  unknown  work.  It  is  highly 
praised  by  Vasari,  and  mentioned  by  Titian  himself 
in  an  existing  letter  written  to  Philip  II.  of  Spain, 
in  1554,  to  congratulate  him  on  his  marriage  with 
our  Queen  Mary.  In  the  light  of  history  it  is 
tempting  to  construe  the  subject  as  symbolising 
Spain's  attempt  to  rescue  England  from  the  dragon 
of  nonconformity — but  veracity  forbids !  The  exact 
date  of  the  painting  is  not  easy  to  fix.  The  master 
had  evidently  thought  it  out  in  1554,  and  it  was 
possibly  finished  and  sent  to  Spain  with  the  Europa 
in  1562.  It  is  worth  noting  that  when  Titian  sent 
in  his  bill  (22nd  December  1574)  for  a  number  of 
pictures  the  Andromeda  appears  just  before  the  Europa 

39 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

in  his  list,  and  immediately  before  the  Andromeda 
appears  the  Diana  and  Actaeon,  which  we  know  was 
sent  in  1559.  The  engraving  made  under  Titian's 
eye  in  1565  was  probably  executed  from  a  second 
version  of  the  subject  now  at  the  Hermitage  Museum 
in  St  Petersburg.  At  all  events,  the  following 
interesting  passage  from  Vasari  proves  that  when 
the  biographer  went  to  Venice  in  1566,  to  collect 
material  for  the  second  edition  of  his  "  Lives/'  this 
picture  was  already  in  Spain  : — 

"  Titian  painted  Andromeda  bound  to  the  Rock 
with  Perseus  delivering  her  from  the  Sea-monster ; 
a  more  beautiful  painting  than  this  could  not  be 
imagined;  and  the  same  may  he  said  of  another, 
Diana  Bathing  with  her  Nymphs  and  turning 
Actaeon  into  a  Stag.  .  .  .  These  pictures  are  in  the 
possession  of  the  Catholic  King,  and  are  held  in  high 
esteem  for  the  animation  imparted  to  them  by  the 
master,  whose  colours  have  made  them  almost  alive." 

So  many  people  have  remarked  how  "modern" 
this  masterpiece  of  Titian's  old  age  appears,  that 
it  is  worth  quoting  Vasari's  continuing  remarks. 
"It  is  nevertheless  true,"  he  observes,  "that  his 
[Titian's]  mode  of  proceeding  in  these  last-mentioned 
works  is  very  different  from  that  pursued  by  him 
in  those  of  his  youth,  the  first  being  executed  with 
40 


THE   ITALIAN    SCHOOLS 

a  certain  care  and  delicacy,  which  renders  the  work 
equally  effective  whether  seen  at  a  distance  or 
examined  closely ;  while  those  of  a  later  period, 
executed  in  bold  strokes  and  with  dashes,  can 
scarcely  be  distinguished  when  the  observer  is  near 
them,  but  if  viewed  from  the  proper  distance  they 
appear  perfect.  .  .  .  And  this  method  of  proceeding 
is  a  judicious,  beautiful,  and  admirable  one,  since 
it  causes  the  paintings  so  treated  to  appear  living, 
they  being  executed  with  profound  art,  while  that 
art  is  nevertheless  concealed." 

To  many  of  Titian's  contemporaries  the  paintings 
of  his  last  manner  must  have  seemed  as  "  unfinished  " 
as  did  those  of  Gainsborough  to  the  captious  of  his 
generation,  those  of  Whistler  to  Ruskin,  those  of 
the  French  Impressionists  to  the  critics  of  the  last 
century.  It  was  a  happy  coincidence  that  Sir 
Claude  Phillips'  rediscovery  of  Titian's  impressionist 
masterpiece  should  have  occurred  just  about  the 
time  when  Claude  Monet,  Pissarro,  and  the  other 
great  masters  of  modern  France  were  at  length 
accepted  and  appreciated  by  the  educated  London 
public.  Some  idea  of  Titian's  earlier  style  may 
be  gained  from  the  Venus  Disarming  Cupid  (XVI., 
19),  which  is  remarkably  close  to  Titian  in  his 
Giorgionesque  period.  This  painting  also  was  once 

41 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

in  the  Orleans  Collection,  where  it  was  classed  as 
a  Giorgione,  a  name  it  bore  till  quite  recently ;  but 
the  weakness  of  the  construction  generally,  and 
of  the  landscape  in  particular,  has  caused  it,  not- 
withstanding its  richness  of  colour  and  dignity  of 
design,  to  be  considered  by  modern  connoisseurship 
as  the  work  neither  of  Titian  nor  of  his  first  master, 
Giorgione,  but  by  some  hitherto  unidentified 
Venetian  painter  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

In  passing,  we  must  note  that  the  catalogue 
queries  1477  as  the  year  of  Titian's  birth.  Few 
modern  students  can  accept  this  date,  which  is  only 
given  by  the  artist  in  a  begging  letter  to  Philip 
of  Spain,  when  it  was  to  Titian's  advantage  to  make 
himself  out  to  be  older  than  he  was.  The  indica- 
tions given  by  Vasari  and  Dolce  that  Titian  was 
born  in  1489  are  more  credible,  but  probably  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  truth  is  given  in  a  letter, 
dated  8th  December  1567,  from  the  Spanish  Consul 
in  Venice  (Thomas  de  Corno9a),  which  fixes  the 
year  of  Titian's  birth  as  1482.  For  a  full  review 
of  the  evidence  concerning  the  date  of  Titian's 
birth  the  interested  reader  is  referred  to  "  Giorgione  " 
(1907),  by  Mr  Herbert  Cook,  who  inclines  to  agree 
with  Vasari. 

To  another  and  very  much  later  age  belong  the 
42 


THE   ITALIAN    SCHOOLS 

numerous  paintings  of  Venice  which  hang  on  the 
walls  of  Gallery  XII.  Antonio  da  Canale  (1697- 
1768),  commonly  known  as  Canaletto,  was  a  pioneer 
in  painting  what  may  be  described  as  "urban 
landscapes,"  and  his  views  of  Venice,  with  their 
accurate  perspective  and  formal  dignity  of  design, 
were  enormously  popular  in  the  eighteenth  and 
early  nineteenth  centuries.  Every  country  gentle- 
man who  made  the  "  grand  tour "  in  those  days 
wanted  to  purchase  a  Canaletto  as  a  souvenir  of  his 
visit  to  Venice.  As  a  result  of  this  widespread 
demand  the  work  of  Canale  was  extensively  imitated 
both  in  Italy  and  in  England.  The  Wallace  Collec- 
tion is  crowded  with  these  imitations,  and  contains 
no  painting  which  can  certainly  be  ascribed  to  the 
hand  of  the  master.  Two  views  of  The  Grand  Canal 
(Nos.  506  and  507)  have  been  identified  as  the  work 
of  his  nephew  and  pupil,  Bernardo  Bellotto,  to 
whom  was  originally  applied  the  diminutive  of 
Canaletto — i.e.  "the  little  Canale" — though  this 
nickname  is  now  generally  used  to  denote  his  more 
famous  uncle.  The  remaining  pictures  still  wearing 
the  name  of  Canaletto  are  not  from  the  hand  of 
either  uncle  or  nephew,  but  the  production  of  Italian 
or  English  imitators,  and  mostly  of  inferior  quality. 

Francesco  Guardi  (1712-1793),  another  pupil  of 
Antonio  Canale,  stands  head  and  shoulders  above 

43 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

these  "pot-boiling"  imitators.  In  some  respects 
he  surpasses  his  master,  not  in  formal  dignity  of 
design  but  in  his  vivacious  charm  and  the  brilliant 
luminosity  of  his  colour.  Where  Canale  gave  precise 
linear  perspective,  Guardi  gives  us  atmospheric 
perspective.  His  views  are  never  cold,  but  bathed 
in  light  and  air ;  they  are  full  of  movement,  and  the 
little  figures  peopling  them  are  exquisitely  drawn 
and  grouped.  Comparing  him  with  his  master,  Mr 
Berenson  shrewdly  observes  that  Guardi  had  "  more 
of  an  eye  for  the  picturesque  and  for  what  may  be 
called  instantaneous  effects,  thus  anticipating  both 
the  Romantic  and  the  Impressionist  painters  of  our 
own  century."  He  was  a  great  colourist,  and  his 
technique,  with  its  small  deft  touches  of  colour, 
conveys  the  sparkle  of  Venice  with  a  brilliance 
which,  in  its  own  way,  has  never  been  surpassed 
by  any  painter.  His  pictures  have  excited  the 
intense  admiration  of  Whistler  and  many  other 
modern  artists.  The  Wallace  Collection  contains 
nine  of  his  views  of  Venice  (Nos.  491,  494,  502-504, 
508,  517-518,  and  XI.,  647),  all,  except  the  last,  in 
Gallery  XII. ;  and  these  are  of  his  best.  They 
represent  the  maturity  of  Guardi's  power,  and  in 
no  other  museum  in  the  world  is  his  delightful  art 
seen  to  better  advantage. 


44 


IV 

THE   MASTER  -  PAINTERS   OF  THE  SEVEN- 
TEENTH  CENTURY 

WRITING  from  Paris  in  1863,  Lord  Hertford  invites 
his  London  agent,  Mr  Mawson,  to  come  over  and  see 
"a  goodish  portrait  by  Rubens"  which  he  had 
bought  that  year  in  Brussels.  This  is  the  Isabelle 
Brant,  Jirst  wife,  of  Rubens  (XVI.,  30),  a  slightly 
varied  version  of  the  portrait  at  The  Hague,  and 
Lord  Hertford  might  pardonably  congratulate  himself 
on  the  purchase.  But  he  ought  to  have  been  still 
more  delighted  when  Mr  Mawson  secured  for  him 
in  1856,  at  a  cost  of  4550  guineas,  The  Rainbow 
Landscape  (XVI.,  63),  undoubtedly  the  noblest  of 
the  many  Rubenses  in  the  collection.  In  all  likelihood, 
however,  Mr  Mawson  had  need  of  his  considerable 
persuasive  powers,  for  Lord  Hertford  once  confessed  : 
"  I  do  not  much  like  Rubens'  landscapes." 

Whether  or  no  we  agree  with  his  lordship  depends, 
to  some  extent,  on  what  we  demand  of  a  landscape. 
There  are  landscapes  which  soothe  and  calm  our 

45 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

spirits,  and  there  are  landscapes  which  exhilarate. 
Those  by  Rubens  come  under  the  latter  category. 
The  Fleming  was  no  mystic  in  his  attitude  towards 
Nature ;  he  approached  her  without  awe,  without 
humility,  and  with  the  friendly  arrogance  of  a 
strong  man  who  respects  strength  in  others.  He 
was  a  pioneer  of  landscape  painting,  but  most  of  his 
landscapes  were  painted  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Chateau  de  Stein,  his  country-seat  near  Mechlin, 
and  in  them  we  may  trace  not  only  the  painter's 
glory  in  the  pomp  and  prowess  of  Nature  but  the 
landowner's  pride  in  a  handsome  and  well-ordered 
estate. 

An  admirable  commentary  on  The  Rainbow  Land- 
scape has  been  written  by  the  German  critic,  Dr 
Richard  Muther :  "  The  struggle  of  the  elements 
is  past,  everything  glitters  with  moisture,  and  the 
trees  rejoice  like  fat  children  who  have  just  had 
their  breakfast."1  The  last  touch  is  masterly;  it 
expresses  exactly  that  healthy  and  contented 
animalism  which  radiates  from  every  work  by  this 
master. 

Rubens  lived  and  painted  on  the  physical  plane, 
and  that  is  why,  though  we  pay  homage  to  his 
masterpieces  at  Antwerp,  we  always  feel  that  he  was 

1  "The  History  of  Painting."  Translated  by  Geo.  Kriehn, 
Ph.D.,  1907. 

46 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY   PAINTERS 

unfitted  by  his  temperament  to  the  treatment  of 
religious  subjects.  There  are  five  of  these  at 
Hertford  House,  including  the  sketch,  Adoration  of 
the  Magi  (XXIL,  519),  for  the  altar-piece  in  the 
Antwerp  Gallery.  The  most  satisfying  is  The  Holy 
Family  with  Elizabeth  and  St  John  the  Baptist  (XVI., 
81),  which  is  unusually  pleasing  in  conception  as 
well  as  in  execution.  The  expression  of  the  St  John 
is  charming,  full  of  human  affection,  and  the  whole 
composition  is  rhythmically  balanced  and  sumptuous 
in  colour.  Christ's  Charge  to  St  Peter  (XVI.,  93)  is 
greatly  inferior,  and  though  its  authenticity  is 
beyond  dispute  the  work  deserves  the  censure  it 
received  from  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds :  "  The  char- 
acters heavy,  without  grace  or  dignity  ;  the  handling 
on  a  close  examination  appears  tame  even  to  the 
suspicion  of  its  being  a  copy ;  the  colouring  is 
remarkably  fresh.  The  name  of  Rubens  would  not 
stand  high  in  the  world  if  he  had  never  produced 
other  pictures  than  such  as  this." 

How  greatly  quality  is  to  be  preferred  to  quantity, 
even  in  a  Rubens,  may  be  recognised  when  we 
compare  this  painting  with  the  Rubens  sketches  in 
Gallery  XXII.,  the  masterly  and  spirited  little 
battle-scene,  Defeat  and  Death  of  Maxentius  (520), 
and  the  three  tiny  panels  (522-524)  of  the  master's 
first  sketches  for  his  decorative  pictures,  The  Birth 

47 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

of  Henri  IV.,  Triumphal  Entry  of  Henri  IF.  into  Paris, 
and  Marriage  of  Henri  IV.  and  Marie  de  Medecis. 
It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  the  battle-scene  is 
one  of  twelve  sketches  illustrating  the  history  of 
the  Emperor  Constantine  the  Great,  originally 
designed  by  Rubens  for  the  tapestry  manufacture 
at  Mortlake. 

Another  exuberant  Fleming  was  Jacob  Jordaens 
(1593-1678),  the  contemporary  of  Rubens,  and 
greatly  influenced  by  that  master  though  never 
actually  his  pupil.  The  Riches  of  Autumn  (XVII. , 
120)  is  a  splendid  example  of  his  bacchanalian 
opulence,  finely  decorative  both  in  design  and  colour. 
The  fruit,  vegetables  and  most  of  the  foliage  in 
this  picture  are  painted  by  Frans  Snyders,  who  fre- 
quently collaborated  with  Rubens  and  other  Antwerp 
painters.  He  was  a  noted  painter  of  still-life  sub- 
jects, as  Dead  Game  (XVI.,  72). 

But  the  most  famous  pupil  of  Rubens  was  tempera- 
mentally poles  apart  from  his  master.  Where 
Rubens  made  all  his  sitters  strong  and  lusty,  Van 
Dyck  made  his  refined  and  spiritual.  From  Rubens 
he  learnt  how  to  handle  his  tools,  but  so  soon  as 
he  had  mastered  them  he  obtained  widely  different 
results.  His  master  did  well  by  him  when  he 
urged  Van  Dyck  to  go  to  Italy.  The  dreamy, 
poetic-looking  youth  was  spiritually  nearer  akin  to 
48 


PHILIPPE  LE  ROY 

Van  Dyck 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY    PAINTERS 

the  Italian  than  to  the  Flemish  painters,  and  what 
he  learnt  from  them,  and  especially  from  Titian, 
may  be  seen  in  his  portrait  of  himself,  The  Artist  as 
the  Shepherd  Paris  (XVI.,  85),  painted  in  Italy  about 
1625-1626.  Somewhere  about  this  time,  or  a  little 
earlier,  he  would  have  painted  the  Young  Italian 
Nobleman  (XVI.,  53),  whom  Mr  Lionel  Gust  thinks 
may  be  a  member  of  the  Lomellini  family  whose 
group-portrait  is  in  the  Scottish  National  Gallery. 

Fortified  and  polished  by  his  knowledge  of  Italian 
art,  Van  Dyck  returned  to  Antwerp,  there  to  paint, 
among  other  people,  Isabella  Waerbeke,  Wife  of  Paul 
de  Vos  (XVI.,  16),  and  those  two  outstanding  master- 
pieces of  this  period,  the  portraits  of  Philippe  le  Roy 
(94)  and  his  wife  (79)-  The  husband,  Governor 
of  the  Netherlands,  and  the  artist's  very  good  friend, 
was  painted  in  1630,  the  wife  in  the  following  year; 
and  the  year  after  that,  in  1632,  the  young  master 
was  invited  by  Charles  I.  to  England,  there  to  become 
Sir  Antony  Van  Dyck  and  Principal  Painter  in 
Ordinary  to  his  Majesty. 

After  he  had  established  himself  in  England  Van 
Dyck  slightly  altered  his  manner,  but  though  he 
painted  many  noble  works  in  this  country  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  he  ever  did  anything  surpassing 
his  portrait  of  Philippe  le  Roy.  Fine  as  the  portrait 
of  the  wife  is,  that  of  the  husband  seems  to  me  more 
D  49 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

profound,  probably  because  the  artist  knew  the 
man  more  intimately.  He  was  only  thirty- two 
when  he  painted  Philippe,  and  ten  years  later  he 
died,  in  London,  but  he  lived  long  enough  to  set 
a  style  in  portraiture  which  generations  of  painters 
have  aimed  to  emulate,  never  surpassing,  rarely 
approaching. 

The  elegance  of  Van  Dyck's  portraits  is  commonly 
remarked,  but  what  the  casual  observer  is  apt  to 
overlook  is  that  this  elegance  penetrates  below 
externals  to  the  mind  and  spirit  within.  How  many 
portrait  painters  who  have  aimed  at  Van  Dyck's 
elegance  have  given  us  nothing  but  chic !  Van  Dyck 
was  not  only  a  most  accomplished  and  fluent  master 
of  the  brush ;  he  must  also  have  been  a  keen 
psychologist.  In  the  history  of  art  Van  Dyck  takes 
rank  with  Botticelli  as  a  poet-painter  who  strove 
exquisitely  to  mirror  not  merely  the  bodies  but  the 
very  souls  of  humanity. 

The  temperamental  contrast  between  Rubens  and 
Van  Dyck  finds  a  parallel  in  the  two  great  portrait 
painters  of  Holland  of  the  same  century,  Frans 
Hals  and  Rembrandt.  Hals  also  lived  on  the 
physical  plane,  but  whereas  Rubens  for  all  his 
exuberance  of  spirits  never  forgot  his  courtly 
manners,  the  boisterousness  of  Hals  was  that  of 
a  good  burgher  on  the  spree.  The  swagger  of  the 

5° 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY    PAINTERS 

brushwork  in  The  Laughing  Cavalier  (XVI.,  84)  is 
as  provocative  as  the  unconcealed  disdain  and 
conceit  of  the  young  soldier  depicted.  Nobody 
can  dispute  the  vital  force  of  a  canvas  by  Hals  or 
contest  the  supremacy  of  his  realistic  rendering  of 
externals,  but  sometimes  we  wish  that  he  had 
dived  deeper  into  character  and  had  concealed  his 
own  extraordinary  cleverness  a  little  more  effectually. 
Of  one  thing  we  may  be  certain,  that  Hals  thought 
painting  tremendous  fun,  and  as  a  happy-go-lucky 
Bohemian  he  would  doubtless  have  roared  with 
laughter  if  he  had  been  told  that  one  day  an 
English  nobleman  would  pay  £2040  for  this 
portrait. 

That  lyrical  prose  writer,  Sir  Frederick  Wedmore, 
has  summed  up  the  difference  between  Rubens  and 
Rembrandt  in  a  singularly  happy  phrase.  "  A  blare 
of  trumpets  announces  Rubens's  presence,"  he 
writes ;  "  but  Rembrandt  simply  holds  your  hand." 
To  continue  the  analogy,  we  may  say  that  Hals 
bursts  in  through  the  door  which  Van  Dyck  opens 
noiselessly.  Sir  Antony  gives  you  the  most  graceful 
bow  and  a  most  penetrating  look ;  but  he  does  not 
"  hold  your  hand."  That  is  the  difference  between 
him  and  Rembrandt.  Both  have  sympathy  and 
insight,  but  Van  Dyck's  are  limited  to  the  upper 
classes ;  those  of  Rembrandt  are  universal. 

51 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Rembrandt's  intense  interest  in  the  humble  and 
lowly  may  be  seen  in  his  tender  little  panel  of 
The  Good  Samaritan  (XIV.,  203).  This  is  probably 
the  earliest  picture  by  the  master  in  the  Wallace 
Collection,  and  well  illustrates  the  careful  precision 
of  his  first  manner.  An  etching  of  the  same  sub- 
ject was  executed  by  one  of  Rembrandt's  pupils 
in  1633,  so  we  shall  probably  not  be  far  out  in 
conjecturing  that  this  was  painted  in  the  previous 
year  or  earlier. 

Look  at  the  portrait  of  Jean  Pellicorne  with  his  son 
Gaspar  (XVI.,  82),  or  Susanna  van  Collen,  Wife  of 
Jean  Pellicorne,  with  her  Daughter  (XVI.,  90),  and  you 
will  get  a  good  idea  of  Rembrandt's  ordinary 
professional  style  in  portraiture  about  this  time 
(1632-1633).  We  do  not  count  these  among 
Rembrandt's  great  masterpieces,  but  this  was  the 
sort  of  portrait  which  his  contemporaries  liked, 
which  for  some  twelve  years  or  so  kept  him  a 
popular  and  prosperous  portrait  painter.  Had  he 
settled  down  to  this  style  and  not  aspired  higher 
he  might  have  escaped  bankruptcy — but  then  he 
would  never  have  become  the  great  master  he  is. 
He  began  his  experiments  towards  evolving  a  more 
profound  and  artistically  richer  style  of  portraiture 
by  painting  himself  again  and  again.  The  portraits 
of  The  Artist  in  a  Cap  (XVI.,  52)  and  The  Artist  in  a 

52 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY    PAINTERS 

Plumed  Hat  (XVI.,  55)  are  early  examples  of  this 
ceaseless  experimenting,  and  of  the  development 
of  the  master's  second  manner. 

Had  he  stopped  even  here  all  might  have  been 
well  with  him  from  a  worldly  standpoint,  but 
Rembrandt  never  stood  still.  How  far  he  had  got 
some  twenty  years  later  we  know  from  his  Portrait 
of  the  Artist's  Son  Titus  (XVI.,  29),  painted  about 
1657,  and  one  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  portrait 
painting  in  the  world.  How  thin  and  shallow  those 
earlier  portraits  look  by  comparison  with  this  haunt- 
ing and  passionate  portrait  of  the  boy  he  loved — 
loved  and  lost,  for  eight  years  later  Titus  died, 
in  1665 :  the  third  great  loss  Rembrandt  had 
suffered  since  the  death  of  his  parents.  His  first 
wife,  Saskia,  had  died  in  1642 ;  her  successor,  Hen- 
drickje,  some  twenty  years  afterwards.  Surely  with 
all  reverence  we  may  say  that  Rembrandt  was  a  man 
of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief. 

Suffering  sours  or  ennobles  character,  and  Rem- 
brandt was  one  of  those  who  are  ennobled  by  the 
trials  they  undergo.  He  lost  his  popularity  almost 
synchronously  with  his  first  wife,  in  1642,  when  he 
painted  The  Night  Watch.  Few  sitters  would  go 
to  a  madman  who  painted  faces  in  shadows  which 
concealed  warts  and  pimples  and  other  characteristic 
traits.  And  he  took  such  liberties  with  his  subjects 

53 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

that  few  would  go  to  him  for  works  other  than 
portraits.  The  Centurion  Cornelius  (XVI.,  86),  which 
Dr  Bode  places  about  1650,  is  a  glorious  example 
of  this  tendency.  For  years  experts  have  been 
worried  to  decipher  the  subject  of  this  painting, 
which  used  to  be  known  as  The  Unmerciful  Servant. 
By  this  reading  the  figure  in  the  turban  and  red 
robe  was  held  to  be  the  Christ,  and  critics  enlarged 
on  the  displeasure  expressed  in  His  face,  and  the 
guilt  and  fear  of  the  Unrighteous  Servant  whom 
they  took  to  be  the  central  of  the  three  figures  to 
the  right.  How  easily  we  may  misread  pictures 
if  we  approach  them  with  preconceived  ideas,  and 
how  vastly  more  important  are  their  decorative  than 
their  illustrative  qualities !  A  mezzotint  by  James 
Ward,  published  in  1800,  gives  the  correct  title,  and 
we  may  gather  that  Cornelius,  the  red-robed  figure, 
is  in  no  way  displeased,  while  the  remaining  three 
figures  are  merely  "two  of  his  he  ehold  servants, 
and  a  devout  soldier  of  them  that  aited  on  him 
continually"  (Acts  x.  7),  receiving  structions  to 
go  to  Joppa.  Of  course,  all  the  diffic  ty  has  been 
brought  about  by  Rembrandt's  lovt  or  Oriental 
splendour,  which  led  him  to  habit  a  Ron  •  centurion 
in  Asiatic  costume.  It  is  not  "  correct "  the  way 
that  Alma  Tadema's  Roman  painting  re;  but 
it  is  great  in  a  way  they  are  not,  because  greatness 

54 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY   PAINTERS 

in  art  does  not  rest  on  pettifogging  accuracy  of 
antiquarian  details  but  on  largeness  of  conception, 
noble  design  and  splendid  colour. 

All  Rembrandt's  landscapes  were  painted  between 
1640  and  1652,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  too  fanciful 
to  imagine  that  he  found  in  Nature  consolation 
for  the  loss  of  his  first  wife  and  his  waning 
popularity. 

The  Landscape  with  a  Coach  (XIII.,  229)  belongs 
to  the  earlier  years  of  his  landscape  period.  It 
used  to  be  called  An  Ideal  Landscape,  and  the  old 
title  is  serviceable  as  indicating  that  this  picture 
is  almost  certainly  not  a  realistic  view  of  any 
particular  place  but  a  studio  composition  made  up 
from  various  sketches  of  nature  put  together  with- 
out regard  to  topographical  accuracy.  It  may  not 
be  nature  in  a  petty,  literal  reading  of  the  word, 
but  it  is  a  most  poetic  rendering  of  a  theme  which 
nature  has  suggested.  Rembrandt  excelled  in 
landscape  as  in  every  other  branch  of  painting,  and 
in  his  appreciation  of  the  veil  of  beauty  which 
atmosphere  casts  over  a  scene,  as  well  as  in  his 
capacity  to  find  strangeness  in  the  familiar  and 
beauty  in  the  commonplace,  he  anticipated  the 
romantic  landscapes  of  the  painters  of  Barbizon. 

Velasquez  was  one  of  the  few  really  great  artists 
in  the  world  who  enjoyed  a  comfortable  life  and  the 

55 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

general  esteem  of  his  contemporaries.  He  had  the 
gravity  and  intellectuality  of  Van  Dyck  without  his 
spirituality.  Van  Dyck's  personages  are  sometimes 
refined  to  the  point  of  appearing  ghostly ;  the  men 
and  women  of  Velasquez  are  always  substantial. 
His  realism  is  as  intense  as  that  of  Hals.  Compare 
his  Lady  with  a  Fan  (XVI.,  88)  with  the  latter's 
Laughing  Cavalier  on  the  same  wall.  The  Velasquez 
is  literally  truer,  because  it  is  more  diffuse,  more 
seen  as  a  whole.  The  Spaniard  silently  opens  a 
window  on  life ;  Hals  smashes  it  with  a  brick — and 
some  have  their  vision  disturbed  by  the  noise  of  the 
falling  splinters. 

Nobody  has  established  the  identity  of  this  lady 
with  a  fan.  Beruete  has  suggested  that  she  may 
be  Francisca,  the  daughter  of  the  painter  and  the 
wife  of  his  pupil,  Mazo,  but  he  brings  forward  no 
evidence  worth  talking  about  to  support  this 
identification.  A  spirited  sketch  of  the  same  lady 
is  in  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  collection. 

Of  the  remaining  pictures  at  Hertford  House 
ascribed  to  Velasquez  the  only  one  whose  authen- 
ticity has  not  been  questioned  seriously  is  Don 
Baltasar  Carlos  in  Infancy  (XVI.,  12).  The  present 
Keeper  stoutly  defends  "Don  Baltasar  Carlos  in  the 
Riding  School  (XVI.,  6),  which  both  Sir  Walter 
Armstrong  and  Beruete  ascribe  to  Mazo.  According 

56 


THE  ARTIST'S  SON  THUS 

Rembrandt 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY   PAINTERS 

to  Mr  MacColl,  "  Mazo  was  incapable  of  so  original 
a  design  and  magical  an  execution." 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  the  acknowledged 
"  school-pieces "  is  the  full-length  portrait  of  Don 
Baltasar  Carlos  (XVI.,  4),  which  was  once  in  the 
possession  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  Northcote 
relates  that  on  seeing  this  picture  in  his  master's 
studio  he  "  greatly  admired  it  and  with  much 
simplicity  said,  ( Indeed  it  is  very  fine ;  and  how 
exactly  it  is  in  your  own  manner,  Sir  Joshua.'  Yet 
it  never  entered  into  my  mind  that  he  had  touched 
upon  it,  which  was  really  the  fact,  and  particularly 
on  the  face."  A  close  investigation  reveals  Sir 
Joshua's  "  restorations,"  not  only  in  the  forehead, 
hair  and  shadows  round  the  jaws,  but  in  the  whole 
of  the  left  hand  and  throughout  the  background. 
The  original  picture  at  Vienna,  of  which  this  is 
probably  a  copy  by  Mazo,  has  a  table  with  a  black 
hat  on  it,  and  beyond  that  a  grey  piece  of  wall. 
Mr  MacColl  points  out  that  "  Reynolds  seems  to 
have  taken  the  dark  patch  of  the  hat  as  defining 
the  shape  of  the  table  in  a  curve ;  has  made  the 
wall  a  sort  of  mantelpiece  with  a  little  book  lying 
on  it,  and  has  broken  a  second  curtain  across  it." 

The  adventures  of  an  artist  do  not  cease  with  his 
death.  Velasquez,  Court  Painter  to  Philip  IV.  of 
Spain  and  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  met  with  a  decline 

57 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

after  his  decease.  He  was,  comparatively  speaking, 
neglected  and  underrated  till  the  third  quarter  of 
the  last  century,  when  he  was  rediscovered  and  his 
praises  sung  loudly  and  enthusiastically  by  Manet 
in  France  and  Whistler  in  England.  At  a  time 
when  artists  were  preoccupied  with  problems  of 
rendering  light  and  air,  with  colour  rather  than  with 
line,  a  multitude  of  worshippers  was  ready  to  pay 
homage  to  the  master  of  Madrid,  who  built  up  his 
aerial  vistas  by  the  juxtaposition  of  subtly  harmon- 
ised planes  of  colour.  The  vehemence  of  his 
admirers  was  not  to  be  denied,  and  the  name  of 
Velasquez  became  a  household  word.  To-day  the 
pendulum  has  swung  so  far  in  his  favour  that  many 
— forgetting  Rembrandt,  Titian  and  a  few  others — 
do  not  hesitate  to  call  him  the  greatest  painter  who 
ever  lived. 

Murillo,  on  the  other  hand,  is  less  highly  esteemed 
now  than  when  Lord  Hertford  bought  a  round 
dozen  of  his  works.  When  our  grandfathers  and 
great-grandfathers  spoke  of  Spanish  painting  they 
thought  first  of  Murillo ;  when  it  is  mentioned 
to-day  we  think  of  Velasquez,  Goya,  El  Greco,  and 
almost  forget  Murillo.  The  present  generation 
finds  a  flavour  of  confectionery  in  Murillo' s  religious 
subjects.  We  look  for  sentiment  and  discover 
sentimentality.  Murillo  was  possessed  neither  of 

58 


SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY   PAINTERS 

great  originality  nor  deep  religious  feeling.  Indeed, 
he  was  at  his  best  painting  the  beggar  boys  of 
Seville  rather  than  the  Holy  Family.  Joseph  and 
his  Brethren  (XVI.,  46)  and  The  Chanty  of  St  Thomas 
of  Villanueva  (XVI.,  97)  are  the  nearest  approach  in 
the  Wallace  Collection  to  those  pictures  in  which 
Murillo  prettily  plays  the  "  Lady  Bountiful "  among 
the  slums  of  Seville.  Of  the  remaining  works,  The 
Marriage  of  the  Virgin  (XVI.,  14)  is  perhaps  the 
most  pleasing,  while  of  the  four  canvases  not  from 
his  own  but  other  hands  (XXVI.,  7  ;  XVII.,  104, 133, 
136),  the  oval  Virgin  and  Child  (133)  is  the  best. 
But  beside  Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  Rembrandt  and 
Velasquez,  Murillo  is  outclassed  at  every  point. 
The  official  catalogue  sums  him  up  kindly  but  firmly  : 
"He  had  an  unerring  instinct  for  graceful  and 
finely  balanced  composition  of  the  more  academic 
type,  but,  even  in  his  famous  sfumato  or  vaporous 
style,  he  cannot  be  ranked  high  among  the  true 
colourists." 


59 


DUTCH   GENRE   PAINTINGS   AND 
LANDSCAPES 

ALL  great  art  springs  from  great  emotion,  and  the 
wonderful  artistic  activity  in  Holland  during  the 
seventeenth  century  was  inspired  by  the  wave  of 
patriotism  which  had  broken  the  yoke  of  the 
Spaniards  and  established  the  independence  of  the 
Dutch  Republic.  It  was  love  of  country  and  con- 
tentment in  peaceful  domesticity,  after  the  stress  of 
war,  which  made  the  Dutch  artists  pre-eminent  as 
painters  of  the  homeland  and  the  hearthside. 

The  Wallace  Collection  is  particularly  rich  in 
examples  of  this  school,  whose  Little  Masters  are 
so  numerous  that  it  is  a  task  to  mention  each  by 
name,  whose  work  is  so  full  of  charm  and  distinction 
that  it  becomes  invidious  to  give  precedence  to  one 
over  the  other. 

Chronologically,  and  perhaps  artistically  as  well, 

the  first  place  is  claimed  by  Adriaen  Brouwer,  whose 

Boor   Asleep  (XIII.,  211)  is   one   of  the   brightest 

jewels  in  the  Hertford  treasury.    He  was  probably 

60 


DUTCH    GENRE    PAINTINGS 

born  in  the  same  year  as  Rembrandt,  in  1606,  or 
a  few  months  earlier,  but  whether  he  was  born 
in  Holland  or  Flanders  is  disputed.  The  latest 
authorities  favour  the  latter  and  give  Oudenarde 
the  honour  of  being  his  birthplace.  More  certain  is 
our  knowledge  that  he  spent  his  youth  in  Haarlem, 
where  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Hals.  Later 
he  worked  at  Amsterdam  and  Antwerp,  and  how 
highly  he  was  esteemed  by  his  greatest  con- 
temporaries may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
Rubens  possessed  seventeen  of  his  pictures,  while 
Rembrandt  had  eight  and  a  sketch-book.  In  a  sense, 
Brouwer  is  a  painter's  painter,  for  only  those  who 
have  studied  painting  can  fully  appreciate  the 
greatness  of  his  achievements :  but  all  can  admire 
the  humorous  vividness  of  his  vision,  the  summary 
perfection  of  his  drawing,  and  the  harmonious 
beauty  of  his  enamel-like  colour. 

His  works  are  exceedingly  rare,  for,  like  Giorgione, 
he  died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two ;  but  Brouwer 
also  left  a  rich  foundation  for  other  artists  to  build 
upon  and  a  fame  that  is  increasing  yearly. 

How  fine  a  colourist  was  Brouwer  may  be  re- 
cognised when  we  compare  his  little  masterpiece 
with  any  of  the  works  by  his  Flemish  successor, 
David  Teniers  the  Younger.  Boors  Carousing  (XIII., 
227),  in  the  same  room  as  the  Brouwer,  is  quite  a 
61 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

good  example  of  Teniers  in  his  silvery  manner,  but 
it  looks  commonplace  beside  the  distinction  of  the 
other.  While  Teniers  endeavoured  to  idealise  his 
peasants  and  make  them  fit  company  for  respectable 
citizens,  his  Dutch  contemporary,  Adriaen  van 
Ostade,  was  more  ruthless  in  his  realisms.  From  his 
version  of  Boors  Carousing  (765)  close  by  we  learn 
his  tendency  to  caricature  and  to  amuse  his  patrons 
by  exaggerating  the  stupidity  and  ungainliness  of  his 
victims.  His  younger  brother,  Isack  van  Ostade, 
holds  the  balance  more  evenly,  extenuating  no  man 
nor  setting  down  aught  in  malice.  The  Winter 
Scene  (XVI.,  73)  is  a  good  example  of  his  serious  and 
unprejudiced  vision.  The  authorship  of  A  Village 
Scene  (XVI.,  21)  is  more  questionable,  and  it  may 
conceivably  come  from  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
Molenaers,  a  family  of  painters  who  extensively 
copied  the  style  of  the  Ostades. 

Gerard  Dou,  one  of  the  many  pupils  of  Rembrandt 
and  financially  the  most  successful  painter  of  his  day, 
made  his  fortune  by  never  progressing  beyond  the 
first  manner  of  his  master.  A  Hermit  (XIV.,  170) 
is  a  typical  example  of  his  precise,  minutely  finished 
style,  which  retains  its  popularity  among  those  unable 
to  distinguish  between  industry  and  inspiration. 
Dou  foreshadows  the  decay  of  the  Dutch,  when 
prosperous  shopkeeping  has  dulled  the  fine  spirit  of 
62 


DUTCH   GENRE   PAINTINGS 

freedom  which  made  them  a  great  nation.  "  His  is 
a  witless,  dreary,  petrified  art,  enlivened  by  no 
thought  and  pulsating  with  no  idea.  In  the  soul  of 
Dou  there  lives  the  soul  of  that  Holland  which 
clipped  the  wings  of  Rembrandt,  the  only  real 
'  Flying  Dutchman,'  and  let  Hals  starve."  x 

A  far  greater  master  than  Dou,  with  an  equally 
keen  eye  for  detail  but  with  more  ability  to  subor- 
dinate it  to  the  unity  of  his  whole  theme,  was  Gerard 
Terborch  (1617-1681).  A  Lady  Reading  a  Letter 
(XIII.,  236)  is  a  brilliant  example  of  his  elegant 
intimacy  and  of  that  delicate  charm  of  colour  which 
only  two  or  three  of  his  fellow-countrymen  could 
rival.  Indeed  the  influences  that  went  to  the  making 
of  Terborch  were  not  confined  within  the  frontiers 
of  the  Netherlands.  He  was  more  a  man-of-the- 
world  than  most  of  the  Dutch  genre  painters ;  he 
visited  England,  Germany,  France,  Italy  and  Spain, 
and  in  the  last  country  he  undoubtedly  studied  the 
paintings  of  Velasquez.  That  he  was  much  affected 
by  that  exquisite  colourist,  Jan  Vermeer  of  Delft, 
is  not  likely,  seeing  that  Vermeer  was  fifteen  years 
his  junior.  But  he  may  well  have  been  influenced 
by  Vermeer's  master,  Carel  Fabritius,  whose  Starling 
is  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Mauritshuis  at  The 
Hague,  and  whose  short,  meteoric  career  had  a 
1  Dr  Richard  Muther.  Op.  cit. 

63 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

greater  influence  on  Dutch  genre  painting  than  has 
yet  been  recognised.  There  are  passages  in 
Terborch's  Lady  at  her  Toilet  (XIII.,  235)  which 
recall  the  colour  schemes  and  enamel-like  quality 
of  paint  which  Vermeer  learnt  from  Fabritius  and 
exquisitely  perpetuated. 

Terborch's  greatest  rival,  Pieter  de  Hooch  (1630- 
1677),  may  also  be  seen  at  his  best  in  the  Interior  with 
Woman  and  Boy  (XVI.,  27).  These  two  and  the 
other  great  masters  of  the  Dutch  school  are  each  in 
his  way  so  perfect  that,  Rembrandt  always  excepted, 
it  is,  as  Dr  Bode  says, "  a  matter  of  individual  taste  " 
which  we  place  first.  For  my  part,  I  give  Vermeer 
the  hegemony  for  soft  radiance  of  colour,  but  when 
it  comes  to  Terborch  and  De  Hooch  I  can  only 
bracket  them  as  equals.  The  latter's  figures  are 
not  so  aristocratic  as  those  of  Terborch,  but  they 
are  seen  as  finely  and  have  their  being  in  the  same 
clear  light  which  both  these  masters  observed  and 
rendered  so  lovingly. 

Gabriel  Metsu  (1629-1 667)  is  a  formidable  rival  to 
both.  The  Letter  Writer  Surprised  (XIII.,  240)  shows 
how  close  he  went  to  Vermeer,  and  his  colour  has 
a  tenderness  which  tends  to  make  even  a  Terborch 
look  a  little  hard.  On  the  other  hand,  Metsu's 
observation  is  less  subtle,  his  research  into  light  and 
shade  is  not  carried  so  far ;  but  he  knows  well  how 
64 


BOOR  ASLEEP 

Broitwer 


LADY  RKADINC  A  LETTER 

Terborch 


DUTCH    GENRE    PAINTINGS 

to  set  his  stage  decoratively  and  his  pictures  are 
always  sprightly  and  dramatic. 

Known  formerly  chiefly  as  a  portrait  painter, 
Nicolas  Maes  (1632-1 693),  another  pupil  of  Rem- 
brandt, is  now  valued  above  all  for  his  genre 
paintings.  Of  the  two  at  Hertford  House,  The 
Listening  Housewife  (XIII.,  224)  is  by  far  the  better, 
though  it  is  one  of  his  earlier  works  in  this  style. 
In  the  best  of  his  works  there  is  a  real  passion  of 
observation  and  penetrating  intimacy.  "  There  is 
scarcely  any  pupil  of  Rembrandt's,"  says  Dr  Bode, 
"  who  approaches  the  great  master  so  nearly  as 
Maes  does  in  this  series  of  pictures."  Unfortunately 
the  series  is  severely  limited ;  some  thirty  only  are 
known  to  exist,  all  painted  between  1655  and  1665. 
After  this  date  circumstances  drove  him  into  "  pot- 
boiling"  portraits,  of  which  we  have  no  examples 
here.  The  two  attractive  portraits  of  boys  with 
hawks  (XVI.,  20,  96)  have  been  taken  away  from 
Maes  by  the  most  recent  scholarship  and  given  to 
his  slightly  older  contemporary,  Joannes  van  Noord. 

Jan  Steen  (1626-1679),  represented  by  five  pictures 
here,  must  be  rated  with  Teniers  as  not  more  than 
a  secondary  genre  painter.  He  is  cleverly  satirical, 
occasionally  accomplished,  but  his  lighting  is  rarely 
true  or  beautiful  and  his  colour  never  rises  to  pre- 
ciousness  and  is  frequently  downright  inharmonious. 
E  65 


THE   WALLACE   COLLECTION 

Between  the  genre  painters  and  the  landscape 
painters  of  Holland  stands  Aart  van  der  Neer  (1603- 
1677),  a  most  convenient  and  fascinating  causeway. 
Born  three  years  before  Rembrandt,  he  is  one  of  the 
great  Early  Fathers  of  landscape,  and  he  is  splendidly 
represented  in  the  Wallace  Collection.  He  antici- 
pated Whistler  in  painting  nocturnes  (XIV.,  ]6l, 
157),  while  Dr  Bode  ranks  his  Winter  Scene  (XIII., 
159)  and  Skating  Scene  (XIV.,  217)  here  as  "among 
the  most  perfect  landscape  delineations  of  winter." 

Like  so  many  of  the  Little  Masters  of  Holland, 
Aart  van  der  Neer  deteriorated  towards  the  end 
of  his  life.  He  was  a  tavern-keeper  and  wine-seller 
as  well  as  painter,  and  conceivably  reverses  in 
business  may  have  driven  him  to  pot-boil  in  his 
last  years.  But  the  two  winter  scenes  here  belong 
to  his  best  period,  approximately  1655  to  1665, 
when  he  was  not  dependent  on  painting  for  a  liveli- 
hood and  as  a  happy  amateur  could  paint  how  he 
pleased. 

Farming  has  always  been  a  very  important  industry 
of  Holland,  in  the  seventeenth  century  as  it  is 
to-day,  and  the  homely  realism  which  is  the  feature 
of  Dutch  art  was  directed  towards  the  country  as 
well  as  the  town.  Of  those  who  painted  cattle 
Paul  Potter  (1625-1654)  is  the  most  celebrated, 
though  he  died  in  his  twenty-ninth  year.  The 
66 


DUTCH   GENRE    PAINTINGS 

precision  of  his  drawing  has  been  admired  for 
centuries,  and  the  Wallace  Collection  contains  one 
of  his  best  and  latest  works,  Cattle  in  Stormy  Weather 
(XIII.,  252),  as  well  as  two  others.  But  his  objective, 
impersonal  accuracy  of  delineation  is  apt  to  tire  us 
by  its  very  impartiality  and  lack  of  strong  personal 
feeling ;  though  we  do  not  all  dare  to  be  as  severe 
as  Dr  Muther,  who  regards  Potter's  cattle  as 
"  essentially  Dutch,  for  they  know  neither  passions, 
nor  struggles,  nor  movement,  but  chew  the  cud 
phlegmatically  or  lie  down  in  comfortable  repose." 

Adriaen  van  de  Velde,  son  of  the  famous  marine 
painter  and  member  of  a  great  family  of  artists, 
was  another  accomplished  and  short-lived  painter. 
But  whereas  with  Potter  the  cattle  were  the 
principal  theme,  with  Van  de  Velde  they  were  only 
part  of  the  landscape.  Even  a  religious  subject, 
such  as  The  Migration  of  Jacob  (XVI.,  80)  was  seized 
upon  as  an  excuse  to  paint  animals  out  of  doors. 
But  the  sunniness  and  atmospheric  charm  which 
distinguished  his  art  is  not  so  well  seen  in  this 
large  work  as  in  the  smaller  Noonday  Rest  (XIV., 
199)-  As  so  frequently  happens  with  him  and  other 
artists,  the  little  pictures  are  the  greatest. 

Cattle  figure  largely  also  in  the  paintings  of 
Aelbert  Cuyp  (1620-1 691),  so  numerously  and  finely 
represented  at  Hertford  House.  But  his  principal 
67 


THE    WALLACE   COLLECTION 

interest  lay  neither  in  the  beast  nor  in  the  earth, 
but  above,  in  the  mighty  vault  of  the  heavens  ;  and 
it  is  in  his  painting  of  skies  and  sunlight  that  his 
mastery  is  most  clearly  seen.  Shipping  on  the  Maes 
at  Dordrecht  (XVI.,  49)  and  The  Ferry  Boat  on  the 
Maes  (XVI.,  54)  are  both  brilliant  examples  of 
Cuyp's  glowing  light  and  golden  colour. 

Though  distinguished  for  his  horses,  Philips 
Wouwermann  was  a  painter  not  of  animals  but  of 
genre,  and  we  shall  find  many  pictures  here,  whether 
Horse  Fair  (XVI.,  65),  Farriers  Shop  (XIV.,  144), 
or  Camp  Scene  (193),  where  in  his  clever,  character- 
istic way  he  puts  in  a  white  horse  just  where  his 
composition  requires  a  spot  of  light  colour. 

Apart  from  all  other  Dutch  landscape  painters, 
belonging  indeed  to  another  race  altogether,  stands 
the  austere  and  majestic  figure  of  Jacob  van  Ruisdael 
(1628-1682).  We  may  easily  pass  by  his  two 
paintings  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  the  Rocky 
Landscape  (XVI.,  50)  and  the  Landscape  with 
Waterfall  (56),  for  they  have  none  of  the  bright 
colour  and  lively  detail  which  draws  our  eyes  to 
the  work  of  lesser  men.  Yet  if  we  search  we  shall 
find  therein  all  the  essential  details  of  a  scene  in 
nature,  and  these  are  so  ordered  into  unity  that  the 
whole  gives  the  effect  of  an  instantaneous  impression. 
"  The  lasting,  singular  impression  made  on  us  by 
68 


DUTCH    GENRE    PAINTINGS 

these  paintings  proceeds,"  says  Dr  Bode,  "from  the 
happiest  combination  of  rare  taste,  wealth  of  thought, 
and  fervid  feeling  possessed  by  the  artist,  who  has 
put  his  whole  soul  into  his  pictures." 

Though  he  took  all  Nature  for  his  province,  and 
in  his  youth  painted  her  more  peaceful  aspects, 
we  instinctively  associate  his  sublime  spirit  with 
holy  spots  which  are  both  savage  and  enchanted. 
We  cannot  realise  that  he  was  eight  years  younger 
than  Cuyp ;  we  can  hardly  believe  that  he  was 
ever  young,  so  serious  and  austere  is  his  vision. 
Ruysdael,  says  that  eloquent  American  painter, 
Mr  John  La  Farge,  "  is  as  different  from  Cuyp 
as  shadow  is  from  sunshine ;  and  his  grave  and 
solemn  mind  gives  to  the  simplest  and  most  common- 
place of  landscapes  a  look  of  sad  importance,  which 
is  almost  like  a  reproach  of  lightmindedness, 
addressed  to  any  other  man's  work  which  happens 
to  hang  alongside." 1  If  we  fail  to  appreciate 
Ruysdael  the  fault  lies  in  our  littleness,  not  in  his 
greatness. 

Meindert   Hobbema   (1 638-1 709),  out   of  whose 

smiling   and   friendly   art   grew   our  own  Norwich 

school    and    other    British    landscape    painters    as 

diverse  as  Gainsborough  and  Constable,  has  always 

enjoyed  a  high  popularity  in  this  country.     He  is 

1  "  Considerations  on  Painting." 

69 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

splendidly  represented  here  by  his  Watermill 
(XVI.,  99)  and  four  other  landscapes.  He  was 
Ruysdael's  pupil  and  friend,  but  as  different  in 
temperament  from  his  master  as  a  man  could  well 
be.  Ruysdael  goes  to  Nature  with  the  devoutness 
of  a  worshipper  approaching  a  shrine ;  Hobbema, 
with  the  unconscious  ease  of  a  man  entering  his 
own  home. 

He  painted  the  same  subjects  over  and  over  again, 
and  he  painted  them  so  naturally,  so  freshly  and 
convincingly,  that  they  take  us  straight  to  nature 
rather  than  to  pictures  by  other  artists.  In  the  humble- 
ness and  sincerity  of  his  naturalism  he  is  so  near 
to  our  own  feelings  of  delight  in  sunny  weather  and 
fresh  country  air,  that  nobody  requires  his  pictures 
to  be  explained  to  them.  What  does  require 
explanation  is  how  it  happened  that  this  most 
simple,  honest,  and  easily  understood  painter  fared 
so  poorly  in  the  profession  of  art  that  at  thirty  he 
was  thankful  to  take  a  small  position  in  the  wine- 
customs  to  gain  his  independence. 


70 


VI 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY    PAINTING    IN 
FRANCE  AND   ENGLAND 

IN  art  the  eighteenth  century  belongs  to  France 
and  England.  It  was  the  age  in  which  each  found 
a  national  style,  and  though  owing  to  the  exclusion 
of  English  furniture  but  a  limited  idea  of  the 
unity  and  completeness  of  our  own  culture  at  this 
period  can  be  formed  from  the  Wallace  Collection, 
it  reflects  the  artistic  activity  and  thought  of 
eighteenth-century  France  with  a  rounded  fulness 
that  is  given  nowhere  else  in  this  country,  that 
is  hardly  to  be  found  in  France  except  at  Versailles. 
France  had  great  masters  of  painting  before  the 
eighteenth  century.  Recently  we  have  learnt  that 
she  too  had  her  primitives,  and  one  of  her  earlier 
sixteenth-century  painters  is  brilliantly  represented 
at  Hertford  House,  among  the  miniatures,  by  the 
exquisite  Dame  de  Clous  (XI.,  107).  This  undoubtedly 
comes  from  the  hand  of  Jean  Clouet  himself,  but  the 
panels  in  Gallery  III.,  including  the  charming  Mary 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Stuart  (530),  are  not  by  the  master,  or  his  son, 
Fra^ois  Clouet,  but  able  contemporary  copies. 

Though  the  almost  feminine  grace  and  Jinesse 
of  Clouet's  drawing  may  be  held  to  be  characteristic 
of  France,  his  can  hardly  be  styled  a  national  art. 
It  is  too  near  to  that  of  his  contemporary,  Hans 
Holbein  the  Younger,  whose  more  tender  qualities 
are  not  represented  here.  The  Jane  Seymour 
(III.,  554)  is  pretty  good,  but  neither  this  nor  the 
Edward  VI.  (547)  are  true  Holbeins ;  they  are 
adaptations  of  the  originals  to  be  found  respectively 
in  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna  and  our  own 
National  Portrait  Gallery.  To  see  the  master 
himself,  in  a  double  sense,  we  must  again  hunt 
among  the  miniatures  till  we  find  the  tiny  but 
colossal  circular  portrait  of  the  artist  by  himself 
(XL,  Case  B,  93).  The  tremendous  virility  expressed 
in  this  little  masterpiece  is  eloquent  of  the  sturdy 
workman  who  would  brook  no  interruption  when 
he  was  busy.  Memories  of  "  Father  William  "  rise 
to  our  mind,  and  as  we  linger  we  can  almost  hear 
a  gruff  voice  exclaiming:  "Be  off,  or  I'll  kick  you 
down  stairs." 

England  imported  her  earlier  masters  from  the 

Continent,  though  the  brilliance  of  her  indigenous 

miniaturists  suggests  that  some  day  research  may 

unearth  native  primitives.   France  bred  them,  but 

72 


INTERIOR  WITH  WOMAN  AND  BOY 

De  Ifoogh 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING? 

when  they  were  full  grown  they  went  and  lived 
in  Italy.  That  is  why  neither  Poussin's  Dance  to 
the  Music  of  Time  (XVII.,  108)  nor  the  Italian 
Landscape  (XVII.,  114)  of  Claude  Lorrain  can  be 
considered  altogether  Gallic  in  origin.  They  were 
great  men,  world-masters  whose  innovations  left 
an  indelible  impress  on  landscape  painting — the 
development  of  which,  by  the  way,  can  be  traced 
with  rare  completeness  in  the  Wallace  Collection — 
but  their  art  belongs  to  the  world,  to  Europe 
generally  rather  than  to  France.  Philippe  de 
Champaigne  again,  though  usually  numbered  among 
the  French  school,  was  born  a  Fleming  and  a 
Fleming  he  remained,  as  his  portrait  and  religious 
paintings  here  (XVII.,  119,  127)  sufficiently  prove. 

No ;  that  painting  which  we  rightly  look  upon 
as  essentially  and  characteristically  French  was  born 
when  Largilliere  began  painting  Louis  XIV.  and  his 
Family  (XVII.,  122)  and  Watteau  left  Valenciennes 
for  Paris. 

The  Wallace  Collection  is  so  infinite  in  its  variety 
that  it  necessarily  stands  in  the  minds  of  visitors  for 
many  things,  according  to  their  private  inclinations. 
To  most  people  it  stands  above  all  for  French  art  of 
the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  but 
some  analyse  their  preferences  more  minutely,  and 
among  these  are  individuals  with  whom  the  Wallace 

73 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Collection  stands  pre-eminently  for  Watteau.  These 
fanatics  have  some  show  of  reason  on  their  side,  for 
not  even  in  the  Louvre  can  the  object  of  their 
adoration  be  more  delightfully  worshipped.  Person- 
ally, I  confess  that  if  a  grateful  nation  offered  me  for 
private  use  during  my  lifetime  one  picture,  and  one 
picture  only,  from  the  Wallace  Collection,  I  should 
not  hesitate  a  moment  before  unhooking  A  Lady  at 
her  Toilet  (XIX.,  439).  It  is  as  unique  as  the  Venus 
of  Velasquez,  and  dare  I  add  that  to  my  thinking  it 
is  lovelier  and  more  joyous  ?  It  is  not  at  all  typical  of 
Watteau,  and  that  partially  accounts  for  its  supreme 
beauty  and  charm.  For  it  rarely  happens  that  an 
artist's  greatest  efforts  are  superficially  typical  of 
his  more  ordinary  professional  practice.  The  Night 
Watch  is  no  more  "  typical  "  of  Rembrandt  than  the 
Mass  of  Bolsena  is  of  Raphael.  At  the  same  time 
none  but  these  great  masters  could  have  painted 
them,  and  no  one  but  Watteau  could  have  painted 
La  Toilette.  His  alone  is  the  tender,  impeccably 
correct  yet  expressive  draughtsmanship ;  his  alone  is 
the  subtle  orchestration  of  ethereal  colour. 

There  have  been  many  painters  who  were  great 
draughtsmen,  there  have  been  many  painters  who 
were  great  colourists ;  but  those  who  were  supreme 
both  in  drawing  and  colour  we  can  almost  count  on 
our  fingers.  Watteau  was  of  their  number.  Look 

74 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

at  the  little  figures  in  a  more  typical  Watteau,  The 
Music  Party  (XVIII.,,  410)  or  The  Champs  filysees 
(380).  They  are  as  perfect  in  their  delineation  of 
form  as  Raphael  at  his  best,  and  in  their  own  way 
they  rival  even  Rembrandt  in  their  expressiveness 
and  sense  of  movement.  In  the  Print  Room  of  the 
British  Museum  you  will  find  chalk  drawings  to  con- 
firm the  highest  opinions  you  can  form  here  of  the 
master's  powers. 

And  then  his  paint,  so  exquisite  in  colour  and  so 
jewel-like  in  quality :  where  among  his  predecessors 
will  you  find  its  equal  ?  You  can  get  a  hint  of  its 
sparkle  from  the  later  works  of  Titian,  from  some 
things  by  Correggio  or  Veronese  at  their  best ;  but 
it  is  not  the  same,  and  I  believe  it  is  always  lower 
in  the  scale  of  colour.  The  brightness  of  his  palette, 
and  the  little  touches  with  which  he  laid  on  his 
colour,  make  his  panels  vibrate  and  sing  as  those  of 
no  other  artist  had  ever  done  before.  Watteau  is 
not  only  a  great  master,  he  is  one  of  the  pioneer 
masters  on  whose  original  research  and  brilliant  ex- 
periments the  greatest  of  his  successors  have  founded 
their  practice. 

We  have  surely  arrived  at  a  stage  of  education 
when  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  defend  Watteau 
against  the  charge  of  frivolity,  of  being  nothing  more 
than  a  chronicler  of  picnics.  He  lived  in  an  arti- 

75 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

ficial  age,  and  being  a  true  artist,  he  could  hardly 
escape  reflecting  something  of  its  artificiality.  But 
if  he  showed  us  the  hectic  charm  of  a  civilisation 
already  being  consumed  by  mortal  malady,  his 
honesty  and  insight  into  character  forbid  his  allow- 
ing us  to  imagine  that  the  happiness  of  his  puppets 
is  anything  more  than  a  passing  moment  of  forget- 
fulness  and  self-deception.  He  has  the  sensitive 
soul  of  the  true  Frenchman,  the  sensitiveness  that 
makes  France  the  gayest  and  saddest  of  nations. 
With  his  remarkable  sympathy  for  French  art  and 
French  character,  Sir  Frederick  Wedmore  has  rightly 
laid  stress  on  "  the  reflective  pathos,  the  poignant 
melancholy,  which  are  among  the  most  appealing 
gifts  of  him  who  was  accounted  the  master  of  the 
frivolous,  of  the  monotonously  gay." 

When  I  wrote  just  now  of  Watteau's  successors  I 
was  not  thinking  of  his  imitators,  Pater  and  Lancret, 
whose  elegant  pastorals  were  so  eagerly  bought  up 
by  Lord  Hertford.  Pater  was  a  type  of  the  prosper- 
ous plagiarist,  whose  confections  are  often  pretty 
and  dainty  but  never  profound.  His  colour  too  is 
greatly  inferior  to  that  of  his  master,  as  we  may 
learn  by  comparing  Watteau's  exquisite  little  Harle- 
quin and  Columbine  (XVIII.)  with  any  Pater  in  the 
collection.  Lancret  was  cut  out  for  better  things. 
If  Pater  pleases  us  best  when  he  comes  nearest  to 

.76 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

his  master,  Lancret  impresses  us  most  favourably 
when  he  is  farthest  removed.  He  had  a  grasp  of 
character  which  the  shallower  Pater  never  possessed, 
and  at  his  best,  as  in  his  superb  portrait  of  an  actress 
known  as  La  Belle  Grecque  (XX.,  450),  he  has  a 
dramatic  force  which  Watteau  never  possessed. 
Had  he  never  approached  nearer  to  Watteau  than 
he  does  in  Mademoiselle  Camargo  Dancing  (XVIII., 
393),  another  spirited  and  individual  figure  subject, 
his  reputation  would  stand  higher  than  it  does  to- 
day ;  but  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  being 
in  the  fashion.  Pictures  which  are  based  merely  on 
other  pictures  and  not  on  personal  feeling  and 
observation  are  moribund  before  they  are  dry,  and 
Lancret's  clever  but  unscrupulous  plagiarism  lost 
him  the  higher  fame  as  well  as  Watteau's  friend- 
ship. 

If  Watteau  laid  the  foundations  for  the  romantic 
and  landscape  art  of  modern  France,  Rigaud,  Lar- 
gilliere  and  Nattier  evolved  the  French  portrait  in 
the  grand  style.  It  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to 
these  portraits  in  an  ordinary  picture  gallery,  and 
it  is  only  when  we  see  them  spaciously  housed  in 
conjunction  with  the  ornate  furniture  of  the  period 
that  we  realise  how  admirably  they  reflect  the 
temper  of  the  time.  Portraits  like  Nattier's  Made- 
moiselle de  Clermont  (XX.,  456)  and  Boucher's  Marquise 

77 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

de  Pompadour  (XVIII.,  418)  are  not  to  be  judged  as 
easel  paintings  but  as  items  in  an  elaborate  scheme 
of  interior  decoration.  In  that  they  take  their  place 
with  an  arrogant  confidence  that  is  justified  by  the 
result.  There  is  nothing  like  them  in  the  history  of 
portraiture,  just  as  there  never  was  a  Court  exactly 
like  that  of  the  "  Grand  Monarch "  and  of  his 
immediate  successors.  In  these  portraits  is  recon- 
veyed  to  us  all  the  splendour  of  that  Court,  its 
ostentation,  its  luxury  and  its  heartlessness.  They 
are  the  quintessence  of  aristocratic  feeling,  so  full  of 
culture  that  there  is  little  room  for  humanity,  the 
most  pompous  paintings  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

Beside  their  measured  stateliness  our  English 
portraits,  even  of  the  highest  personages,  never 
appear  more  than  genteel ;  for  England  in  the 
eighteenth  century  was  already  in  the  grip  of 
democracy.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  may  not  have  had 
a  promising  subject  in  William,  fourth  Duke  of  Queens- 
berry  (I.,  56l),  but  Boucher,  who  was  not  over- 
particular about  getting  likenesses,  would  at  least 
have  made  him  look  like  a  duke.  Reynolds,  with 
the  bluff  irreverence  and  common-sense  which  used 
to  characterise  our  countrymen,  makes  him  look 
exactly  like  "Old  Q."  Sir  Joshua  and  his  con- 
temporaries talked  a  lot  about  the  "grand  style," 
but  whenever  they  attempted  it  they  only  made 

78 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

themselves  look  ridiculous.  When  they  forgot  what 
had  been  done  in  Italy  and  what  was  being  done  in 
France,  and  were  content  to  be  their  own  homely 
natural  selves,  then  they  give  us  masterpieces  like 
the  Nelly  O'Brien  (XVI.,  38)  and  Mrs  Richard  Hoare 
with  her  Infant  Son  (32) :  masterpieces  which  we 
love,  not  because  they  are  in  the  "grand  style," 
though  we  admit  their  decorative  qualities,  but 
because  they  are  intimate  and  familiar  and  full 
of  personal  feeling — in  short,  because  they  are  in- 
tensely human.  Nelly,  we  are  told,  was  no  better 
than  she  should  have  been,  and  a  French  painter  of 
that  period  would  have  thrust  her  misfortune  in  her 
face.  But  Sir  Joshua,  great-hearted  gentleman  and 
true  Christian,  painted  her,  not  because  she  was  my 
Lord  Bolingbroke's  mistress  but  for  his  own  good 
because  she  was  a  woman,  God  bless  her,  a  pleasure 
to  know  and  to  look  upon,  and,  above  all,  a  human 
being  compact  of  faults  and  virtues  like  himself. 

We  must  admit  that  Sir  Joshua  and  the  rest  look 
heavy-handed  beside  their  contemporaries  across  the 
Channel.  We  will  give  the  Frenchmen  their  due, 
they  could  be  magnificent  in  the  lightest  and  airiest 
fashion.  The  Englishmen  were  too  solid  for  airiness 
and  too  stolid  for  magnificence.  They  could  only 
be  substantial  and  comfortable  and  affectionate. 
But  if  there  were  some  things  they  could  not  do, 

79 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

there  were  also  other  things,  impossible  to  their 
neighbours,  which  they  could  achieve  with  ease. 
Among  these  are  Sir  Joshua's  two  child  portraits 
here,  The  Strawberry  Girl  (XVI.,  40)  and  the  little 
girl  with  the  dog,  Miss  Bowles  (36). 

We  can  understand  Reynolds  a  lot  better,  and 
perhaps  appreciate  his  qualities  more  keenly,  when 
we  learn  of  the  preliminaries  which  preceded  the 
painting  of  this  last.  Sir  George  Beaumont  advised 
Mr  Bowles  to  ask  Reynolds  to  dine,  so  that  the 
great  man  might  become  acquainted  with  his  sitter. 
"The  advice  was  taken  ;  the  little  girl  placed  beside 
Sir  Joshua  at  the  dessert,  where  he  amused  her  so 
much  with  stories  and  tricks  that  she  thought  him 
the  most  charming  man  in  the  world.  He  made 
her  look  at  something  distant  from  the  table  and 
stole  her  plate ;  then  he  pretended  to  look  for  it, 
then  contrived  it  should  come  back  to  her  without 
her  knowing  how.  The  next  day  she  was  delighted 
to  be  taken  to  his  house,  where  she  sat  down  with 
a  face  full  of  glee,  the  expression  of  which  he  at 
once  caught  and  never  lost."1 

To  have  told  Sir  Joshua  that  he  was  just  a  mass 
of  emotions  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  to  invite  a 
sound  cudgelling,  but  it  would  not  have  been  far 

1  "Life  and  Times  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,"  Leslie  and 
Taylor. 

80 


NELLY  O'BRIEN 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 


Miss  HAVERFIELD 

Gainsborough 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

from  the  truth.  Like  a  good  Englishman,  he  kept 
his  feelings  under  stern  control;  and  he  had  them 
well  in  hand  when  he  painted  Mrs  Hoare  and  her 
baby.  He  was  conscious  that  her  gorgeously 
patterned  dress  would  look  well  against  the  land- 
scape background,  he  must  have  known  that  her 
pose,  that  the  position  of  the  two  left  arms,  would 
provide  a  surprisingly  beautiful  and  rhythmic  design ; 
but  with  all  these  elements  of  the  grand  style  re- 
membered and  expressed  with  consummate  mastery, 
he  could  not  altogether  hide  his  human  sympathy 
with  the  maternal  passion,  and  after  all  this — is  it 
not  ? — is  the  great  thing  which  we  carry  away  from 
the  picture. 

Of  all  our  eighteenth-century  portraitists  Thomas 
Gainsborough  is  the  lightest  and  airiest,  and  he 
also  did  not  lack  psychological  insight,  though  his 
two  works  in  the  Wallace  Collection  have  not  the 
profundity  of  Sir  Joshua's.  His  Miss  Haverfield 
(XVI.,  44)  is  more  of  a  little  lady  than  any  of  Sir 
Joshua's  children,  but  this  cannot  be  counted  a 
great  virtue  so  long  as  we  rank  childhood  as  more 
important  to  the  world  than  gentility.  To  be 
candid,  what  we  admire  in  Gainsborough  is  not  the 
intensity  of  his  personal  feeling — more  often  than 
not  he  is  a  little  cold  and  aloof — we  are  fascinated 
by  his  graceful  dexterity  as  an  executant.  He  is 
F  81 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

less  emotional  than  Sir  Joshua,  but  he  is  a  greater 
colourist,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  took 
a  hint  in  this  department  from  Watteau,  whom  in 
one  picture  at  least  he  directly  emulated.  His 
treatment  of  foliage  greatly  resembles  that  of 
Watteau,  and  it  is  the  technique  of  Watteau  which 
bears  the  closest  resemblance  to  that  network  of 
small  touches  of  colour  which  gives  so  great  a 
vivacity  to  the  Mrs  Robinson  (42)  and  other  works 
by  Gainsborough,  touches  which  were  incompre- 
hensible to  so  many  of  his  contemporaries.  Sir 
Joshua  could  not  altogether  approve  of  these 
eccentricities,  but  his  honesty  would  not  allow  him  to 
deny  their  effectiveness  when,  after  Gainsborough's 
death,  he  paid  his  tribute  to  the  painter.  "  It  is 
certain,"  he  said,  "  that  all  those  odd  scratches  and 
marks  which,  on  a  close  examination,  are  so  observ- 
able in  Gainsborough's  pictures,  and  which  even  to 
experienced  painters  appear  rather  the  effect  of 
accident  than  design — this  chaos,  this  uncouth  and 
shapeless  appearance,  by  a  kind  of  magic  at  a  certain 
distance  assumes  form,  and  all  the  parts  seem  to  drop 
into  their  proper  places,  so  that  we  can  hardly  refuse 
acknowledging  the  full  effect  of  diligence,  under  the 
appearance  of  chance  and  hasty  negligence." 

Inherited  tendencies  so  quickly  accustom   us  to 
the  outlook  of  a  great  master,  that  few  people  now 
82 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

are  even  conscious  of  this  peculiarity  in  Gains- 
borough's paintings.  But  to  his  contemporaries 
a  Gainsborough  must  have  seemed  as  strange  as 
a  Mancini,  a  Monet,  or  a  Pissarro  did  to  us  only 
a  few  years  ago.  Romney,  the  third  great  English 
painter  of  the  period,  is  not  so  well  represented 
here  as  his  rivals,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  his 
"  Perdita "  (37),  charming  as  she  is,  looks  a  little 
wooden  beside  those  of  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  the  portraits  by  Romney 
and  Gainsborough  were  done  while  this  gifted 
actress  and  authoress  was  under  the  "protection" 
of  George  IV.  But  that  royal  rascal  soon  tired 
of  her,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-four — when 
Reynolds  painted  her — she  had  already  been 
abandoned  by  "the  first  gentleman  in  Europe." 
When  he  sent  her  away,  the  scamp  gave  her  a  bond 
for  £20,000  ;  but  he  never  paid  it,  and  "  Perdita  " 
Robinson  died  in  1 800,  poor  and  paralysed. 

Curiously  enough,  the  one  eighteenth-century 
French  artist  tainted  with  democracy,  Chardin, 
whose  intense  humanity  links  him  to  his  con- 
temporaries across  the  Channel  as  his  colour  exalts 
him  over  most  of  their  heads — this  great  painter 
was  unaccountably  missed  both  by  Lord  Hertford 
and  Sir  Richard  Wallace.  His  pupil,  Fragonard, 
a  very  different  sort  of  man,  appealed  to  them  more 

83 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

strongly   and   their   group    of    nine    Fragonards   is 
hardly  to  be  equalled  in  any  other  collection. 

Fragonard  was  only  for  a  few  months  with 
Chardin,  by  whom  he  was  little  influenced.  It 
would  be  extravagant  to  see  much  of  the  latter 
even  in  Fragonard's  domestic  subjects,  the  Young 
Scholar  (XX.,  455)  or  The  Schoolmistress  (XVIII.,  404). 
Chardin  is  always  serious  and  earnest,  Fragonard 
is  frolicsome  and  playful.  How  characteristic  of 
him  is  his  signature  in  the  latter  delightful  picture, 
where  the  subject  suggests  the  alphabet  and  he 
impishly  traces  on  the  background  "  A  B  C  D  E 
Fragonard " !  He  learnt  more  from  Boucher,  his 
second  master,  for  Boucher  also  in  his  own  way 
was  a  master  in  the  harmonising  of  schemes  of 
delicate  colour.  But  Fragonard's  paint  has  a  fat, 
luscious  body  unknown  to  Boucher,  and  this  most 
likely  he  got  from  Tiepolo,  whose  work  he  studied 
attentively  in  Italy  after  he  had  won  the  Prix  de 
Rome.  Boucher,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  was 
a  decorator  rather  than  a  painter.  That  is  where 
his  pupil  differs  from  him,  for  Fragonard  was  a 
painter  as  well  as  a  decorator.  We  should  know 
this  if  nothing  of  his  existed  but  the  Lady  Carving 
her  Name  (XVIII.,  382).  It  cost  Lord  Hertford 
£1400  in  1865,  but  it  was  not  a  penny  too  dear, 
for  though  it  is  so  tiny  (nine  by  seven  inches),  it  is 

84 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

the  greatest  Fragonard  he  ever  possessed.  It  must 
surely  be  later  than  The  Swing  (XIX.,  430)  which, 
though  much  larger,  is  painted  in  so  much  tighter 
and  cramped  a  manner.  Lady  Dilke,  who  fixes  the 
date  of  the  latter  about  1768,  held  that  in  this 
picture  "  the  licence  taken  is  saved  from  being 
offensive  by  an  air  of  fantastic  unreality."  1  That 
is  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  the  present  generation 
is  apt  to  find  all  the  so-called  "gallantry"  of  this 
period  exceedingly  detestable.  We  know  from 
records  that  this  subject  was  painted  to  order,  so 
we  need  not  blame  the  painter  unduly  on  any 
moral  grounds,  and  it  is  more  to  the  point  to  lay 
stress  on  the  great  artistic  superiority  of  the  Lady 
Carving  her  Name,  so  delicious  in  colour,  so  fresh 
and  vigorous  in  handling.  Although  Fragonard 
could  paint  admirable  miniatures  (see  XL,  Case  B, 
183),  there  is  nothing  of  the  miniature  painter  in 
this  little  picture  which  we  may  imagine  that  he 
painted  for  himself  and  not  to  order.  Even  in  this 
wistful  little  picture  there  is  a  touch  of  playfulness. 
Is  the  title  correct  ?  Is  it  her  own  name  she  is 
carving,  or  "  a  name "  ?  At  all  events,  the  first 
initial  carved  is  that  of  the  artist,  who  perhaps 
thought  better  of  his  first  idea  and  finally  signed 
himself,  not  on  the  tree  but  on  the  stone  bench. 
1  "  French  Painters  of  the  Eighteenth  Century." 
85 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

But  a  bad  time  was  coining  for  all  these 
aristocratic  painters.  Happy  those  who  died  before 
the  French  Revolution  set  in.  Fragonard  lived 
on  and  nobody  then  wanted  panels  like  those  on 
the  staircase  of  Hertford  House.  The  Cupids  were 
asleep  with  a  vengeance  and  only  the  gods  of 
war  were  in  demand.  Even  Greuze,  distinctly  a 
bourgeois  painter,  could  not  accommodate  himself 
to  the  change  in  taste,  and  both  died  in  poverty. 
It  seems  extraordinary  that  Greuze,  most  popular 
of  painters  at  all  times,  should  have  fared  so  badly 
at  the  end  of  his  life.  But  there  is  an  explanation. 
That  innocent,  "sweet"  little  person  who  looks  out 
at  you  from  so  many  frames  on  the  walls  of 
Hertford  House  brought  her  immortaliser  to  a 
miserable  end.  If  you  are  a  judge  of  character  you 
will  probably  have  come  to  the  conclusion  long  ago 
that  the  Greuze  girl  is  not  so  innocent  as  she 
pretends  to  be.  She  is  eminently  "  kissable,"  and 
if  you  are  wise  you  will  leave  it  at  that.  Greuze 
married  her  to  save  her  reputation,  so  'tis  said,  and 
lived  to  repent  of  his  bargain.  She  was  the  daughter 
of  an  old  bookseller  on  the  Quai  des  Augustins,  and 
her  latest  biographer  does  not  conceal  the  fact  that 
her  every  feature  "announced  a  hasty,  passionate, 
and  rather  voluptuous  nature."  1 

1  "Greuze  and  his  Models,"  John  Rivers. 
86 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTING 

Owing  to  her  husband's  exposition  of  her  charms, 
Anne  Gabriel  became  one  of  the  noted  beauties 
of  the  day,  and  she  repaid  him  by  robbing  him  not 
only  of  his  peace  of  mind  but  of  large  sums  of 
money  that  he  had  saved. 

But  all  Frenchwomen  were  not  like  that,  even 
before  the  Revolution,  and  happily  the  Wallace 
Collection  reminds  us  of  the  existence  of  another, 
an  honour  to  her  sex,  her  country  and  her  time. 
We  cannot  do  full  justice  to  the  art  of  Madame  Vigee 
le  Brun  from  what  we  see  of  it  in  Hertford  House. 
Of  the  charm  of  her  personality  we  get  some  idea 
from  Dumont's  miniature  (XL,  Case  C,  244) ;  and 
her  Portrait  of  a  Boy  in  Red  (XX.,  449)  and  Madame 
Perregaux  (457)  tell  something  of  her  executive 
ability,  of  her  understanding  of  children,  of  her 
human  sympathy.  But  to  take  her  measure  we 
must  see  her  portrait  of  herself  and  her  little 
daughter  at  the  Louvre,  and  then  we  know  she  was 
not  only  the  most  human  portrait  painter  practising 
in  France  during  her  time  but  also  one  of  the 
truest  and  most  accomplished  artists  of  her  century. 


87' 


VII 
MODERN    FRENCH    PAINTINGS 

To  examine  critically  a  gift-horse  is  not  supposed 
to  be  good  form.  It  is  impolite,  not  tactful ;  but 
if  you  wish  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  its  value  the 
proceeding  is  highly  sensible.  The  modern  paintings 
acquired  by  Lord  Hertford  and  Sir  Richard  Wallace 
include  many  works  of  fine  quality,  but  they  also 
include  a  great  number  of  pictures  which  are  poor 
in  quality,  were  popular  in  their  time,  and  are  of 
little  or  no  interest  to-day.  That  both  these  dis- 
criminating art  patrons  should  have  made  so  few 
mistakes  when  purchasing  "old  masters"  and  so 
many  mistakes  when  buying  the  works  of  living 
artists,  merely  proves  what  the  well-informed  have 
long  known — namely,  that  it  is  infinitely  more  difficult 
to  recognise  great  talent  among  our  contemporaries 
than  among  the  dead  whose  praises  have  already 
been  sung. 

Where  so  many  collectors  err  in  their  patronage 
of  living  art  is  that  they  are  tempted  to  be  guided 


. 
o    § 


LADY  CARVING  HER  NAMK 

Fragonartl 


MODERN    FRENCH    PAINTINGS 

in  their  choice  not  only  by  the  merit  of  the  work 
but  by  the  position  of  the  artist.  Those  who  forget 
this  tendency  will  be  tempted  to  wonder  whatever 
in  the  world  induced  Lord  Hertford  to  acquire 
twenty-nine  pictures  by  Horace  Vernet,  a  painter 
whose  existence  we  should  have  forgotten  long  ago 
but  for  his  tiresome  intrusion  at  Hertford  House. 
The  explanation  is  very  simple.  At  the  time  these 
paintings  were  bought  Horace  Vernet  was  President 
of  the  French  Academy,  a  great  man  to  his  con- 
temporaries because  he  was  head  of  a  great  school, 
and  a  charming  and  courtly  man  to  boot.  Many 
people  would  think  they  were  quite  safe  in  buying 
the  pictures  of  a  president  of  an  academy ;  but 
Lord  Hertford,  had  he  lived  long  enough,  would 
have  discovered  that  it  all  depends  on  who  is  the 
president.  If  he  is  a  Joshua  Reynolds,  well  and 
good ;  but  more  often  he  is  not,  and  then  you  get 
an  Eastlake  or  a  Vernet.  It  not  infrequently 
happens  that  an  artist's  reputation  after  his  death 
is  in  inverse  ratio  to  what  it  was  in  his  lifetime. 
So  with  Horace  Vernet,  his  little  pictures  of  soldiers 
are  tolerably  pleasing  as  unimportant  illustrations, 
but  the  large  canvases  admired  by  kings  and 
emperors  in  his  day  are  as  dead  as  those  monarchs, 
and  on  the  whole  are  rather  less  respected. 

The  case  of  Horace  Vernet  proves  how  fallible 
89 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

the  most  experienced  collector  may  be  when  he 
exercises  his  judgment  among  the  living.  There 
are  always  people  to  be  found  who  will  maintain 
that  preferences  in  painting  are  merely  "a  matter 
of  taste."  When  dealing  with  what  is  excellent 
of  its  kind,  this  is  true.  It  is  a  matter  of  taste 
whether  you  prefer  Watteau  to  Chardin,  Rousseau 
to  Corot,  Courbet  to  Delacroix,  but  if  it  was  possible 
for  you  to  prefer  Vernet  to  any  of  these  it  would 
not  be  a  matter  of  taste,  it  could  only  be  a  lack  of 
knowledge.  For  if  taste  dictates  our  choice  between 
equals,  it  is  knowledge  which  enables  us  to  dis- 
criminate between  what  is  excellent  and  what  is 
inferior. 

I  have  no  desire  to  dwell  unduly  on  Lord 
Hertford's  mistakes ;  it  is  pleasanter  to  dwell  on 
what  is  true  and  beautiful  and  lasting  in  its  charm  : 
but  I  am  thankful  that  not  a  single  Vernet  in  the 
collection  can  be  traced  to  the  instigation  of  Mr 
Mawson.  I  like  to  think  that  Mawson  would  have 
known  better. 

The  pomp  and  circumstance  of  what  I  may  call 
Ludovician  art  was  utterly  destroyed  by  the  French 
Revolution.  Theocritus  gave  place  to  Caesar,  and 
David  and  his  school  arose  to  paint  Roman  history 
and  military  subjects  to  meet  the  popular  demand 
of  the  time.  David's  pupil,  Baron  Gros,  another 
90 


MODERN    FRENCH    PAINTINGS 

great  man  in  his  time,  is  represented  here  by  the 
small  General  Bonaparte  Reviewing  his  Troops  (XV., 
303) ;  he  was  a  great  favourite  with  Napoleon,  but 
in  1835  he  recognised  his  deficiencies  and  escaped 
the  censure  of  the  rising  generation  by  throwing 
himself  into  the  Seine. 

David  and  his  school  are  of  some  importance 
in  the  history  of  French  painting,  but  we  can 
well  dispense  with  them  at  Hertford  House.  The 
three  Frenchmen  who  most  deeply  influenced  the 
painting  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  Ingres, 
Delacroix  and  Courbet :  Ingres,  the  great  Classic 
among  many  pseudo-Classics ;  Delacroix,  the  great 
Romantic ;  Courbet,  the  great  Realist.  All  three 
were  great,  and  all  three  hated  and  misunderstood 
each  other. 

We  can  understand  Sir  Richard  Wallace  never 
buying  a  Courbet — no  gentleman  of  his  day  would 
patronise  an  artist  who  was  a  red-hot  revolutionary 
and  a  communist ;  we  can  understand  his  missing 
Daumier,  whose  gaunt  masterpieces  would  appear 
to  him  unfinished ;  but  why  neither  he  nor  Lord 
Hertford  bought  a  painting  by  Ingres  is  inexplicable. 
In  the  Board  Room  at  Hertford  House  there  hangs, 
however,  a  pencil  drawing  by  Ingres  after  Raphael's 
Hope  and  Charity  (767),  which  gives  us  an  idea  of 
the  daintiness  and  precision  of  the  master's  line. 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Ingres  was  the  one  great  artist  who  came  out 
of  the  studio  of  David  and  had  Raphael  for  his 
model.  The  idol  of  Delacroix  was  Rubens,  and  he 
was  as  enamoured  of  colour  as  was  Ingres  of  line. 
In  1824,  when  the  paintings  of  Constable  were 
exhibited  for  the  first  time  in  the  Paris  Salon, 
Delacroix,  then  twenty-six  years  of  age,  was  greatly 
impressed  by  the  Englishman's  work,  and  on 
Varnishing  Day  he  made  his  own  picture  brighter 
with  more  luminous  colouring.  He  was  probably  the 
first  of  modern  painters  to  study  colour  scientific- 
ally :  to  ask  of  a  red,  for  example,  not  merely 
whether  it  was  light  or  dark  but  whether  it  ap- 
proached orange  or  purple.  He  studied  the  magnum 
opus  of  the  great  scientist  Chevreuil  on  colour,  but 
he  based  his  practice  far  more  on  his  own  observations 
than  on  scientific  theories.  When  he  was  in 
Morocco  he  wrote  in  his  journal  about  shadows 
on  the  faces  of  two  peasant  boys  he  had  seen,  and 
remarked  that  whereas  the  sallow,  yellow-faced  boy 
had  violet  shadows,  the  ruddy-faced  one  had  green 
shadows.  He  began  that  research  into  the  colour 
of  shadows  the  expression  of  which  has  been  the 
supreme  achievement  of  modern  painting. 

All  colour,  we  now  know,  is  relative,  not  absolute, 
and  depends  on  many  things :  the  colour  of  the 
light,  the  distance  of  the  object  from  the  eye,  and 
92 


MODERN    FRENCH    PAINTINGS 

its  surroundings.  The  colour  of  an  object  close  to 
the  eye  is  what  we  call  local  colour ;  for  example,  the 
white  of  the  newly  fallen  snow  on  the  ground  just 
beneath  us.  But  snow-topped  hills  lighted  by  the 
setting  sun  are  reddish  in  hue,  and  this  is  an 
example  of  illumination  colour.  Hills  covered  with 
green  grass  seen  from  a  great  distance  appear  blue, 
and  thus  we  learn  of  the  existence  of  atmospheric 
colour.  But  this  is  not  all,  for  further  complications 
are  brought  about  by  the  fact  that  when  two 
colours  are  juxtaposed  each  tends  to  throw  its 
complementary  into  the  other. 

Delacroix  learnt  something  about  this  while  he 
was  painting  The  Execution  of  the  Doge  Marino 
Faliero  (XV.,  282).  He  had  been  trying  hard  to  get 
brilliancy  in  his  yellows,  without  succeeding  to  his 
liking ;  and  then  one  day,  while  walking  through 
the  streets  of  Paris,  he  saw  a  black  and  yellow  cab, 
and  he  noticed  that  beside  the  greenish-yellow  the 
black  took  on  a  tinge  of  violet,  its  complementary. 
He  had  discovered  another  secret  law  of  colour  :  that 
to  obtain  the  full  brilliance  of  any  given  hue  it 
should  be  flanked  and  supported  by  its  complemen- 
tary colour.  He  did  not  attain  to  full  knowledge  ; 
it  was  left  for  later  generations  to  make  finer 
distinctions  and  recognise  that  if  violet  is  the  right 
complementary  for  a  greenish-yellow,  an  orange 

93 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

yellow  requires  turquoise  blue.  Delacroix  did  not 
get  further  than  opposing  yellow  by  violet,  as  we 
may  see  in  his  work  at  Hertford  House,  a  picture 
painted,  we  should  remember,  in  1826,  before  he 
went  to  Morocco.  This  was  one  of  the  painter's 
favourite  works,  and  a  very  splendid  and  glowing 
creation  it  is,  as  we  may  realise  by  comparing  it 
with  the  works  hung  round  it.  Many  of  these  are 
very  beautiful  in  colour,  but  none  is  more  alive  and 
vibrating  in  its  colour.  It  is  finely  dramatic  as  well, 
spirited  in  its  design  and  the  general  presentation 
of  the  subject.  Some  day,  perhaps,  it  will  be  hung 
in  a  better  place,  where  its  qualities  as  a  landmark 
in  the  rise  of  romantic  painting  may  more  easily  be 
perceived.  It  is  the  finest  Delacroix  in  any  English 
gallery,  but  all  the  same  we  cannot  take  the  full 
measure  of  the  painter  till. we  have  seen  his  Triumph 
of  Trajan  at  Rouen  or  his  works  in  the  Louvre. 

The  smaller  Faust  and  Mephistopkeles  (342)  is 
interesting  as  showing  how  Delacroix  was  moment- 
arily influenced  by  the  style  of  his  friend  Bonington, 
but  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  representative 
example  of  the  "leader  of  the  Romantic  painters, 
whose  aim  was  the  substitution  of  colour,  life  and 
poetry  for  the  frigid  Grseco-Roman  classicality  of 
David's  school." 

Richard  Parkes  Bonington  was  born  near  Notting- 

94 


MODERN   FRENCH    PAINTINGS 

ham  in  1801,  so  we  may  claim  him  as  an  Englishman  ; 
but  he  went  to  Paris  as  a  boy  of  fifteen,  received  his 
training  at  the  Beaux-Arts,  and  is  therefore  a  French 
artist  in  all  but  birth.  He  died  when  he  was  only 
twenty-six,  but  already  his  rich  colour  and  romantic 
feeling  had  influenced  his  contemporaries,  and  there 
is  little  doubt  that  had  he  lived  he  would  have  been 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  distinctive  artists  of 
his  time.  The  Wallace  Collection  contains  the 
finest  series  of  his  works  to  be  found  anywhere,  and 
these  show  his  precocious  versatility  and  variety.  He 
was  not  allowed  time  to  find  himself  completely,  but 
first  in  water-colour,  and  then  for  a  few  years  in  oils, 
he  treated  architectural  subjects,  landscapes,  figures 
and  historical  genre  with  a  remarkable  charm  and 
distinction.  He  anticipated  the  Orientalists  so 
completely  in  his  water-colour,  The  Arabian  Nights 
(XXII.,  657),  that  for  years  this  was  catalogued  as  a 
Decamps.  Mr  MacColl  has  recently  discovered  the 
signature,  "R.  P.  Bonington  1825,"  concealed  under 
the  old  mount.  It  is  worth  noting  in  this  water- 
colour,  painted  a  year  before  the  Doge  Marino  Faliero 
of  Delacroix,  how  the  luminous  red-brown  shadows 
are  darkened  by  touches  of  indigo,  not  black,  and 
how  eifectively  two  notes  of  blue  give  value  to  the 
prevailing  colour  scheme  of  old  gold.  When  we 
look  at  this  little  picture  of  Scheherazade  or  the 

95 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Landscape  with  Timber  Waggon,  France  (XV.,  362), 
we  begin  to  understand  the  enthusiasm  of  Delacroix, 
who  hailed  his  friend's  works  as  "  diamonds  by  which 
the  eye  is  fascinated." 

Gericault  (1791-1824),  another  short-lived  painter 
who  also  influenced  Delacroix,  was  built  on  a  more 
heroic  scale,  as  we  may  gather  even  from  his  little 
sketch  of  A  Cavalry  Skirmish  (274).  How  spirited 
and  full  of  animation  this  appears  beside  many 
similar  subjects  in  its  neighbourhood !  It  was  from 
Gericault  perhaps  that  Delacroix  caught  the  fire  of 
passionate  drawing,  that  tempestuous  rendering  of 
form  which  characterises  the  work  of  both  these 
painters  of  revolt.  But  Gericault,  though  his  paint 
is  always  of  good  quality,  was  not  really  a  fine 
colourist.  In  this  he  was  surpassed  by  many  lesser 
men.  Not  by  Delaroche,  whose  compromise  between 
the  classicism  of  Ingres  and  the  romanticism  of 
Delacroix  was  highly  popular  and  successful  in  his 
day,  but  appears  to  us  as  tame  and  unspirited  as 
compromises  in  art  usually  are,  but  by  men  like 
Prud'hon,  Decamps  and  Couture,  who  usually  become 
tiresome  and  depressing  when  they  attempt  a  large 
canvas,  but  are  almost  invariably  delightful  in  small 
pictures.  When  they  felt  themselves  obliged  to  paint 
a  grande  machine  they  forced  their  genuine  talent 
beyond  its  capacity,  and  the  perpetuation  of  their 
96 


LADY  AT  HER  TOILET 

\Vatteau 


LA  BEI.LE  GRECQUE 

Lancret 


MODERN    FRENCH   PAINTINGS 

mistakes  only  serves  to  remind  us  of  the  truth 
that  in  art  it  is  quality  and  not  quantity  that 
counts.  Do  you  know  Prud'hon's  little  painting  of 
The  Zephyr  (295)  ?  It  is  only  some  eight  by  six 
inches,  but  who  in  his  senses  would  exchange  this 
tiny  canvas,  full  of  enamel-like  colour  and  tender 
feeling,  for  his  nearly  life-sized  Venus  and  Adonis 
(347)? 

And  the  weeny  little  Harlequin  and  Pierrot  (288) 
of  Couture  ?  Would  you  exchange  this  "  four  by 
five  "  scrap  of  loveliness  for  his  enormous  Decadence 
des  Remains  which  you  have  hurried  past  at  the 
Louvre  ?  Of  course  not.  In  Paris  you  have 
probably  thought  of  the  man  only  as  a  tiresome 
academician  who  made  a  lucky  reputation  as  a 
teacher  owing  to  the  brilliance  of  his  pupils.  From 
the  Wallace  Collection,  whence  in  all  wisdom  his 
"big  machines"  are  excluded,  you  learn  better,  for 
there  a  precious  group  of  tiny  canvases  testify  to 
his  sensibility  to  charming  colour. 

And  Decamps  ?  Have  we  not  all  delighted  in  the 
colour  of  his  Villa  Doria-Panfili  at  Rome  (267),  and 
in  that  extensive  series  of  small  Oriental  subjects 
which  makes  Hertford  House  the  finest  Decamps 
gallery  in  existence  ?  There  is  nothing  finicky 
about  the  painting  of  any  of  these.  They  are  not 
miniature  paintings  like  those  of  Meissonier,  which 
G  97 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

interest  us  by  their  industry  and  exactitude  of 
detail ;  they  have  the  greater  qualities  of  freedom  of 
handling,  intense  virility  and  glow  of  colour.  Have 
you  noticed  the  family  resemblance  between  the 
fat,  luscious  paint  of  Decamps,  Couture  and  a  few 
more  ?  They  got  it,  like  Millet  and  some  other 
great  men  not  represented  here,  from  Correggio's 
Jupiter  and  Antiope  at  the  Louvre.  They  could  be, 
and  were,  Correggios  in  little ;  but  when  they  tried 
to  rival  him  on  his  own  scale  disaster  awaited  them. 
Diaz  drew  inspiration  from  the  same  source  :  Diaz, 
whose  works  fit  the  phrase  of  Delacroix,  "  diamonds 
by  which  the  eye  is  fascinated,"  far  more  closely 
than  those  of  Bonington.  His  little  Cupids  (266,  268) 
and  Fountain  at  Constantinople  (312)  are  among  the 
most  precious  things  in  colour  in  the  whole  collec- 
tion, and  they  also  possess  pre-eminently  that  charm 
of  surface  which  we  hopelessly  define  as  "quality 
of  paint" — hopelessly,  because,  in  truth,  it  baffles 
definition.  We  know  the  difference  between  velvet 
and  velveteen,  between  satin  and  satinette  ;  and  we 
should  be  able  to  feel  the  difference  between  the 
surface  quality  of  a  Delacroix  and  a  Delaroche,  a 
Diaz  and  a  Bonheur.  We  feel  that  the  one  is  but 
"  bread  and  scrape"  compared  with  the  other ;  but  we 
cannot  get  over  the  difficulty  by  thinking  we  have 
only  to  spread  on  paint  thickly  enough  in  order  to 
98 


MODERN    FRENCH   PAINTINGS 

get  "  quality."  For  it  has  been  obtained  with  the 
thinnest  and  most  liquid  of  vehicles  by  Gainsborough 
and  a  few  others,  and  unobtained  by  many  who  have 
loaded  their  canvases  with  pigment. 

Once  our  eye  is  trained  to  look  for  it,  we  mark 
the  difference  in  surface  between  a  Dupre  and  a 
Rousseau,  and  it  is  his  want  of  this  quality,  among 
others,  that  forces  us  to  rank  Dupre  low  among  the 
painters  of  Barbizon.  Rousseau,  so  finely  repre- 
sented here  by  his  Glade  in  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau 
(283),  we  must  rate  high,  very  high,  for  other 
qualities  besides  those  of  the  surface  of  his  paint. 
He  is  the  great  realist  among  the  landscape  men, 
not  limited  in  his  choice  of  themes  like  Corot,  but 
omnivorous,  painting  everything  to  be  found  in  the 
forest,  at  all  seasons,  at  all  hours.  He  does  not  look 
at  Nature  with  the  dreamy  gaze  of  a  poet,  but  with 
the  fiery  glance  of  a  philosopher  who  would  rend 
her  secrets  from  her.  In  this  passionate  search  for 
plastic  form,  for  the  very  anatomy  of  Nature,  his 
paintings  may  appear  prose  beside  the  poetry  of 
Corot ;  but  it  is  the  sonorous  prose  of  exact  language 
grandiloquently  phrased  in  carefully  rounded  periods. 

"  Rousseau  is  an  eagle,"  said  Corot,  with  charming 
modesty ;  "  as  for  me  I  am  only  a  lark  who  utters 
little  cries  among  the  grey  clouds."  But  how  ex- 
quisite are  his  trills !  We  cannot  judge  him  by  his 

99 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Macbeth  and  the  Witches  (281)  here,  for,  felicitous 
as  this  may  be  in  its  rhythmic  design  and  silvery 
tonality,  it  is  not  an  altogether  frank  expression  of 
the  painter's  soul.  Corot,  the  supreme  master  of 
reveries  in  paint,  had  to  force  himself  not  a  little  to 
become  dramatic,  and  somehow,  despite  the  charm 
and  mystery  of  the  evening  landscape,  we  feel  that 
he  is  a  little  too  strained  to  be  altogether  himself. 
It  is  interesting  because  it  is  of  so  exceptional  a 
character,  and,  relative  to  what  many  others  have 
done,  it  is  a  thing  of  beauty.  But  for  Corot,  no ; 
here  he  does  not  give  us  of  his  best,  and  to  see  that 
we  must  go  at  least  as  far  as  the  Salting  Bequest  in 
the  National  Gallery. 

Troyon,  who  like  Diaz  had  worked  for  the  porce- 
lain factory  at  Sevres  before  he  went  to  Barbizon, 
began  his  career  as  a  landscape  painter ;  but  at 
thirty-eight  he  discovered  that  he  could  paint  cattle — 
and  what  was  more  important,  could  sell  his  paintings 
of  them.  Combining  the  cattle  demanded  by  the 
public  with  the  landscape  which  really  interested 
him  most,  he  contrived  to  remain  an  artist  and  yet 
make  a  good  thing  out  of  painting.  Corot  sold  his 
first  picture  when  he  was  fifty,  and,  though  fourteen 
years  his  senior,  was  still  an  unknown  man  when 
Troyon  was  a  well-known  and  prosperous  painter. 
But  neither  his  art  nor  his  nature  was  spoilt 
100 


MODERN    FRENCH   PAINTINGS 

by  Troyon's  worldly  success,  which  enabled  him 
to  do  many  a  good  deed  by  stealth  towards  his 
brilliant  kbut  less  fortunate  comrades.  His  tactful 
generosity  to  Millet  and  others  was  rewarded  when 
he  made  young  Boudin  his  protege,  and  the  boy 
whom  Corot  was  later  to  style  "the  king  of  sky 
painters"  gave  Troyon  a  hand  in  painting  the 
brilliant  heavens  that  illumine  his  landscapes.  It  is 
possible  that  Boudin  had  a  hand  in  the  sky  of  the 
larger  cattle  landscape  (344)  at  Hertford  House. 
If  so,  these  passages  are  all  that  represent  him,  for 
Sir  Richard  Wallace  missed  Boudin,  together  with 
Millet,  Daubigny,  Monticelli — how  was  that  ? — 
Jongkind,  Manet  and  a  host  of  other  good  painters 
working  in  the  sixties  and  early  seventies.  But  he 
did  not  miss  Isabey.  Though  chiefly  known  for  his 
brightly  coloured  procession-pieces  like  his  Court 
Reception  (271)  here,  Isabey  was  also  a  landscape 
painter  of  distinction,  and  he  was  something  of  a 
pioneer  in  sea-painting.  His  Promenade  by  the  Sea  (XV., 
360),  painted  in  1846,  and  his  Ships  on  the  Seashore 
(579),  painted  five  years  later,  show  his  steady  pro- 
gress towards  a  lighter  scheme  of  colour,  more  in 
accordance  with  the  true  hues  of  Nature.  The 
yellowish  grey  clouds  of  the  last,  with  the  peeps  of 
blue  sky  in  between,  show  how  this  veteran — who 
lived  to  be  eighty-two  —  anticipated  the  "  grey 

10 1 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

painting"  of  Boudin  and  prepared  the  way  for  the 
J inn i n ist  landscapes  of  Claude  Monet  and  Pissarro. 

The  modern  paintings  of  schools  other  than  the 
French  hardly  bear  talking  about.  To  have  bought 
Verboeckhoven,  Gallait  and  Baron  Leys,  and  to  have 
missed  Alfred  Stevens  and  Willem  Roelofs,  throws 
little  credit  on  our  collectors'  excursions  to  Belgium. 
Nor  are  the  modern  British  painters  much  to  brag 
about.  The  Turner  sketches  are  nothing  out  of  the 
way,  and  the  rest — Bonington  excepted — is  little 
above  the  low  level  of  the  Chantrey  Bequest.  Our 
collectors  do  not  appear  to  have  profited  by  history 
when  they  started  to  collect  works  by  living 
painters.  Else  had  they  known  that  it  is  on  the 
pictures  which  academies  reject  that  the  art  of  the 
future  is  built,  and  that  posthumous  fame  has  a  way 
of  unseating  the  mighty  from  their  safe  official  seats 
and  of  exalting  the  meek  and  lowly  to  the  throne  of 
grace.  Let  us  think  of  Corot  and  Horace  Vernet — 
and  say  no  more. 


102 


VIII 
BRONZES  AND   SCULPTURE 

I  REMEMBER  visiting  the  Wallace  Collection  on  one 
occasion  with  a  foreign  lady  who  was  not  interested 
in  the  least  either  in  pictures  or  furniture.  She  was 
an  authority  on  what  are  known  as  "  Swedish  move- 
ments," and  her  absorbing  interest  was  in  the 
human  form  and  its  full  plastic  expression  in  art. 
Accordingly,  we  spent  a  very  pleasant  afternoon 
looking  exclusively  at  the  bronzes  and  sculpture  in 
Hertford  House,  and  in  her  company  I  examined 
carefully,  for  the  first  time,  many  pieces  that  hitherto 
I  had  only  cursorily  regarded. 

It  was  this  lady,  if  I  remember  rightly,  who  first 
called  my  attention  to  the  boxwood  statuette  of 
Hercules  swinging  his  Club  (X.,  Case  A,  35),  an  object, 
as  I  afterwards  discovered,  of  the  highest  celebrity. 
But  my  friend  knew  nothing  of  its  history ;  she  did 
not  know  that  it  had  been  attributed  to  the  early 
sixteenth-century  Paduan  artist,  Francesco  da  Sant' 
Agata,  or  that  it  had  probably  been  inspired  by  a 
103 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Greek  antique  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  She  only 
knew  it  was  a  consummate  rendering  of  lissome, 
athletic  form,  of  muscles  taut  but  elastic ;  an  extra- 
ordinarily actual  impression  of  vital,  physical  move- 
ment. Everyone  can  see  how  superbly  the  form  is 
modelled,  how  true  it  is  to  life ;  but  the  trained  eye 
will  also  perceive  how  exquisite  is  the  flow  of  line 
throughout  the  figure,  and  how  admirably  and 
inevitably  the  thick  end  of  the  club  balances  the 
advanced  right  foot.  This  little  masterpiece  is  only 
about  nine  and  a  half  inches  high,  and  it  serves  to 
remind  us  once  again  that  in  art  the  real  greatness 
of  a  work  has  nothing  to  do  with  its  dimensions. 

Among  several  bronzes  which  date  from  about  the 
same  period — namely,  the  first  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century — first  place  perhaps  should  be  given  to  the 
throned  goddess  (XI.,  71),  a  signed  work  by  Giovanni 
da  Cremona,  though  its  patina  is  so  suspiciously 
brilliant  and  light  that  this  surface  colouring  may 
conceivably  be  of  later  date.  The  modelling  of  this 
statuette  cannot  approach  that  of  the  boxwood 
Hercules,  as  we  recognise  the  moment  we  look  at 
the  left  fore-arm  and  right  leg  of  the  goddess.  Its 
charm  is  rather  in  the  pose  and  general  conception 
of  the  whole  figure,  which  is  possibly  intended  not 
so  much  to  represent  Venus  herself  as  to  symbolise 
the  mystery  of  love.  The  sphinx  and  the  Cupid, 
104 


EXECUTION  OF  THE  DOGE  MARINO  FAUERO 

Delacroix 


BRONZES   AND    SCULPTURE 

modelled  in  low  relief  on  either  side  of  the  throne, 
lend  some  colour  to  the  latter  interpretation. 

Of  the  numerous  small  bronzes  by  Giovanni  da 
Bologna  (1524-1608),  which  were  acquired  either  by 
Lord  Hertford  or  Sir  Richard  Wallace,  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  is  the  spirited  group  of  Nessus 
carrying  off'  Dejatiira  (33).  This  fine  bronze,  to  be 
found  on  the  landing  at  the  head  of  the  grand 
staircase,  is  another  example  of  sculpture  that  is 
decorative  rather  than  realistic.  There  is  great 
strength  and  virility  in  the  human  part  of  the 
centaur,  no  doubt ;  still  it  is  not  for  subtlety  of 
modelling  that  this  group  commands  our  admiration. 
Its  pre-eminent  distinction  lies  in  the  skill  of  its 
pyramidal  composition,  the  main  lines  of  which  are 
suggested  by  the  outstretched  arm  of  Dejanira,  the 
curved  fore-legs  of  the  centaur  and  the  rhythmical 
re-echo  of  this  curve  in  the  waving  tail. 

Another  bronze  group  by  this  Italian  master, 
Hercules  overcoming  a  Centaur  (IX.,  26),  should  be 
mentioned,  not  only  for  its  intrinsic  interest  but  also 
for  its  bronze  base,  chased  and  gilt,  which  is  also 
Italian  work  dating  from  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
or  early  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

A  still  earlier  marble  relief  is  of  too  curious  a 
character  to  be  passed  over  in  silence.  This  is  the 
circular  Head  of  Christ  (III.,  26),  executed  by  Pietro 

105 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Torrigiano,  a  Florentine  artist  who  came  over  to 
England  somewhere  about  1515.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  the  face  of  Christ  is  not  at  all  Italian  in  type 
but  Gothic,  and  the  explanation  is  that  on  his  way 
to  England  Torrigiano  probably  visited  Amiens 
Cathedral,  where  the  famous  Beau  Christ  so  impressed 
him  that  he  made  it  his  model  for  this  head. 

Now  we  may  reasonably  suppose  that  a  Florentine 
of  this  period,  coming  straight  from  the  David  of 
Michael  Angelo  to  the  sculpture  of  Amiens,  would 
get  a  shock  approaching  to  that  experienced  by  a 
modern  Frenchman  coming  from  Ingres  to  Cezanne. 
Consequently  it  says  much  for  Messer  Torrigiano's 
broadminded  discrimination  that  he  could  so 
enthuse  over  this  masterpiece  of  the  early  thirteenth 
century.  His  deliberately  assumed  archaism  is 
marked  in  his  treatment  of  the  hair,  which  is  most 
natural  on  the  crown  of  the  head,  but  a  mere  rope- 
like  convention  in  the  locks  falling  over  the 
shouldei-s.  The  circular  frame  decorated  with 
foliage  and  Tudor  roses,  which  surrounds  this  high 
relief,  is  itself  a  fine  piece  of  decorative  sculpture, 
for  it  is  all  stone,  though  now  painted  and  gilt. 

In  the  corridor  between  galleries  VI.  and  VII.  is  a 

bronze  relief  (1)  which  has  puzzled  the  most  eminent 

experts.  The  subject  presents  no  difficulty;  it  is  a 

Ceremonial  Dance  of  Maidens,  and  is  an  adaptation 

106 


BRONZES   AND    SCULPTURE 

rather  than  an  exact  copy  of  the  famous  late  Greek 
or  Greco-Roman  marble  relief  formerly  in  the  Villa 
Borghese  and  now  at  the  Louvre.  But  when  and  by 
whom  was  the  adaptation  at  Hertford  House  made  ? 
Formerly  it  was  thought  to  be  Italian  work  of  the 
early  sixteenth  century ;  but  against  this  it  has  been 
pointed  out  that  "  the  technique  is  more  uniformly 
complete  and  accomplished  and  the  working  out  more 
formal  than  is  usual  in  the  magnificently  expressive 
works  of  that  time."  Then  Dr  Bode1  suggested  it 
was  by  a  French  sculptor  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
possibly  Gouthiere  or  Thomire.  A  few  months 
later  another  German  critic,  Herr  Robert  Eisler,2 
found  a  passage  in  Belloni's  "  Life  of  Nicholas 
Poussin,"  showing  that  Louis  XIII.  in  1641  had 
ordered  casts  to  be  taken  of  various  antiques  in 
Italy,  among  them  that  of  the  Dancers  in  the  Villa 
Borghese.  Yet  even  this  does  not  altogether  settle 
the  difficulty,  for  the  bronze  at  Hertford  House  is 
no  mere  cast  of  the  original  marble  now  at  the 
Louvre.  The  heads  of  the  dancers  are  different,  the 
modelling  of  the  figures  in  the  bronze  is  more 
elaborate  and  highly  finished.  Whoever  was 
responsible  for  the  bronze  version  must  have  been  a 
sculptor  of  no  mean  accomplishment,  and  it  seems 

1  Burlington  Magazine,  March  1904. 

2  Ibid.t  September  1904. 

107 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

reasonable  to  suppose  the  author  was  a  French 
sculptor  of  the  late  seventeenth  or  early  eighteenth 
century,  who  worked  from  the  cast  made  for 
Louis  XIII. 

Here  it  may  be  permissible  to  remark  that 
towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  and 
after,  it  is  in  France  that  the  great  sculptors  must 
be  sought.  Indeed  France  possessed  masters  of 
this  art  in  the  preceding  century.  There  was  Jean 
Goujon,  traces  of  whose  influence  may  be  found 
in  the  carved  panels  of  two  sixteenth-century 
walnut- wood  armoires  (VI.,  15;  V.,  13)  here.  There 
was  Germain  Pilon,  whose  noble  and  arresting 
bronze  bust  of  Charles  IX.  (VI.,  16)  has  been  pro- 
nounced "  of  its  class  and  school  unique,  both  as 
regards  concentrated  power  of  conception  and 
technical  perfection." 

And  then  came  Charles  Antoine  Coysevox  (1640- 
1720).  It  is  instructive  to  compare  his  sumptuous 
Bronze  Bust  of  Louis  XIV.  (V.,  2)  with  Pilon's 
Charles  IX.  The  Coysevox  has  neither  the  in- 
tellectuality nor  the  spirituality  of  Pilon's  thoughtful 
masterpiece ;  but  it  is  no  whit  less  expressive  of 
character.  Could  mind  conceive  or  hand  execute 
a  more  magnificent  presentation  of  the  arrogant 
self-sufficiency  of  the  Grand  Monarque  ?  "  There 
is  no  portrait  of  the  King,  either  at  Versailles  or 
108 


BRONZES    AND    SCULPTURE 

in  the  Louvre,  of  precisely  the  same  type,  or  so 
admirable  in  the  quality  of  the  bronze  as  well  as 
the  breadth  and  finish  of  the  execution."  In  the 
museum  of  Dijon  there  is  a  similar  bust  by  Coysevox 
in  marble,  but  it  is  certainly  no  finer  than  the 
bronze  and  many  find  the  Hertford  House  version 
the  more  impressive. 

Another  admirable  example  of  the  power  and 
accomplishment  of  Coysevox  is  his  Terra-cotia  Bust 
of  Charles  Le  Brun  (IV.,  5),  who  was  first  painter 
to  Louis  XIV.  and  the  director  of  that  monarch's 
artistic  enterprises.  This  terra-cotta  is  the  original 
model  for  the  slightly  larger  marble  bust — now  in 
the  Salle  Coysevox  at  the  Louvre — which  was 
executed  in  1679  for  the  French  Academy. 

Fran9ois  Girardon  (1628-1715),  the  contemporary 
of  Coysevox  and  in  the  opinion  of  many  his  equal, 
is  not  so  splendidly  represented  at  Hertford  House. 
Here  we  only  get  echoes,  as  it  were,  of  his  genius. 
The  Equestrian  Statuette  of  Louis  XIV.  (XXI.,  39) 
is  only  one  of  several  small  variants  of  his  great 
statue  in  the  Place  Vendome  which  was  destroyed 
during  the  Revolution.  The  two  bronze  garden 
vases  (IV.,  106,  107),  showing  in  low  relief  the 
Triumphs  respectively  of  Galatea  and  Venus,  are 
contemporary  reductions  of  the  great  marble  vases 
at  Versailles.  Perhaps  we  get  nearest  the  master 
109  -«•• 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

in  the  bronze  groups  of  Boreas  carrying  off  Orithyia 
(XVI.,  4,  6),  which  are  from  Girardon's  marble 
original. 

Diminished  echoes  again  are  the  gilt  bronze 
groups  of  Les  Chevaux  de  Marly  (XVI.,  26,  28). 
Every  visitor  to  Paris  will  remember  the  fine 
originals  by  Guillaume  Coustou  the  elder  which 
are  placed  at  the  entrance  to  the  Champs  Elysees. 
Coustou  was  the  nephew  and  most  famous  pupil 
of  Coysevox,  and  even  the  small  reproductions  here 
reveal  the  power  of  the  master.  It  was  Coustou 
who  first  broke  away  from  the  grandiloquent  rhetoric 
of  the  Louis  XIV.  style,  and  led  the  way  towards 
that  ruder  but  still  decorative  realism  that  was  to 
reinvigorate  French  sculpture. 

The  next  great  step  in  this  direction  was  taken 
by  Pigalle,  who  was  not  only  influenced  by  Coustou 
but  for  some  time  the  pupil  and  assistant  of  his  son, 
Guillaume  Coustou  Jils,  himself  an  accomplished 
sculptor. 

From  Pigalle,  who  most  unfortunately  is  not 
represented  in  this  collection,  descends  a  long  line 
of  great  sculptors.  Claude  Michel,  known  as 
Clodion,  was  among  his  pupils,  and  so  was  Jean 
Antohie  Houdon  (1741-1828),  who  is  one  of  the 
great  sculptors  not  only  of  France  but  of  the 
modern  world. 

no 


BRONZES   AND    SCULPTURE 

Two  signed  masterpieces  by  Houdon  are  to  be 
seen  at  Hertford  House.  One,  a  marble  bust, 
formerly  thought  to  represent  Madame  Elizabeth, 
the  sister  of  Louis  XVI.,  is  now  identified  as  a 
portrait  of  Madame  Victoire  de  France  (XL,  1),  the 
fifth  daughter  of  Louis  XV.  and  the  aunt  of  Louis 
XVI.  But  it  is  so  great  a  work  of  art,  so  radiant 
a  rendering  of  the  smiling  charms  of  womanhood, 
regal  and  mature,  that  the  identity  of  the  portrait 
is  comparatively  unimportant.  It  was  executed 
by  Houdon  in  1777,  when  that  great  man  was 
thirty-six  years  of  age  and  already  a  past  master 
of  his  art.  If  detail  interests  you,  see  how  ex- 
quisitely the  master  has  treated  the  lace  of  this 
great  lady's  chemise ;  and  how,  notwithstanding 
the  loving  care  which  enables  him  almost  miracul- 
ously to  suggest  its  filmy  delicacy,  he  is  careful  not 
to  obtrude  it  on  the  spectator  but  subordinates  this 
and  all  other  detail  to  his  large  conception  of  the 
whole  bust.  Note  again  how  the  curls  on  the 
shoulder  and  the  cunningly  arranged  drapery  assist 
and  promote  that  flow  of  line  which  gives  movement 
and  vitality  to  the  whole  bust.  And,  above  all, 
consider  how  superbly  the  head  is  poised,  and  with 
what  extraordinarily  subtle  and  delicate  modelling 
the  rounded  charms  of  the  lady  are  presented. 

Houdon's   second   masterpiece   here,  the  Marble 
in 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Bust  of  Madame  de  Serilly  (XI.,  4),  reveals  quite 
another  type  of  womanhood.  Madame  Victoire 
is  the  personification  of  graciousness  and  amiability, 
but  she  is  neither  a  thinker  nor  a  scholar.  Madame 
de  Serilly  is  both  ;  she  is  distinctly  spirituelle  in  type 
and,  as  opposed  to  Madame  Victoire,  we  imagine 
she  is  governed  by  her  head  rather  than  her  heart. 
All  this  Houdon  has  divined,  and  expressed  in  his 
reading  of  the  characters  of  these  two  women.  The 
second  bust  was  executed  in  1782,  and  twelve 
years  later  Madame  de  Serilly  was  condemned  to 
death  by  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  She  escaped, 
however,  because  her  devoted  friend,  Madame 
Elizabeth,  falsely  declared  her  to  be  enceinte.  But 
Houdon  persuades  us  that  if  this  miracle  had  not 
happened,  she  would  have  met  her  fate  with  calm 
self-possession  and  philosophic  fortitude. 

Compared  with  Houdon,  it  is  idle  to  pretend  that 
his  contemporaries,  Falconet  and  Clodion,  were 
master  sculptors.  They  were  great  decorators,  good 
modellers,  clever  designers,  if  you  like,  and  they, 
with  many  other  sculptors  of  their  time,  were 
employed,  as  we  shall  see  later,  to  enrich  and  adorn 
the  furniture  of  the  period.  Clodion,  to  my  thinking, 
is  so  immeasurably  the  superior  of  Falconet  that 
it  seems  unfair  to  couple  their  names  together. 
Clodion's  figures  show  distinction  and  observation 
112 


BRONZE  BUST  OF  Louis  XIV 

Coysevox 


MARBLE  BUST  OF  MADAME  VICTOIRE  r>v,  FRANCE 

Hoution 


BRONZES   AND    SCULPTURE 

of  life,  as  we  may  gather  from  the  Bronze  Bacchante 
(XIII.,  1)  after  his  original,  and  still  better  from  his 
signed  work,  the  White  Marble  Vase  (XVII.,  55),  so 
delightfully  encircled  by  a  chain  of  sporting  Cupids. 
Falconet  was  little  more  than  the  clever  and 
accomplished  Academy  student  of  his  day,  and  his 
Venus  chastising  Cupid  (XXI.,  20)  takes  us  neither 
to  Olympus  nor  Versailles,  but  merely  to  the  antique 
class  of  any  academy.  Cayot  could  do  this  sort 
of  thing  much  better  in  the  preceding  century,  as 
we  learn  from  his  playfully  tender  Marble  Groupe : 
Cupid  and  Psyche  (XXI.,  1).  To  see  Falconet  at  his 
best  we  must  see  him  applying  his  art  to  the 
decoration  of  his  time,  as  in  the  Clock  in  Candelabrum 
Form  (II.,  14),  where  the  bronze  figure  is  less  sugary 
and  more  virile. 

We  cannot  take  leave  of  the  sculpture  at  Hertford 
House  without  expressing  regret  that  a  greater 
than  Charles  Lebourg  was  not  found  to  perpetuate 
the  heads  of  Lord  Hertford  and  Lady  Wallace. 
We  could  hardly  have  expected  a  collector  in  the 
early  seventies  to  have  sought  out  the  youthful 
Rodin.  But  there  were  others  :  Dalou,  for  example  ; 
and  undoubtedly  in  1899  a  greater  than  Hannaux 
might  have  been  found  to  execute  the  posthumous 
bust  of  Sir  Richard  Wallace. 

France  has  so  great  a  line  of  sculptors,  second 
H  113 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

to  no  other  nation  than  Italy  in  the  modern  world, 
that  we  should  have  liked  to  see  a  collection, 
beginning  with  Goujon,  Pilon,  Coysevox,  Coustou 
and  Houdon,  end  with  the  no  less  illustrious  names 
of  Pigalle,  Rude,  Carpeaux,  Dalou,  Barye  and  Rodin. 


114 


IX 
FRENCH    FURNITURE 

"  FRENCH  furniture  ?  Yes,  it  is  very  handsome,  no 
doubt,  but  I  do  not  care  for  it."  Something  of  this 
kind  is  what  one  often  hears  when  the  subject  is 
mentioned,  and  this  attitude  is  not  altogether 
confined  to  the  untrained.  The  writer  remembers 
having  heard  a  very  distinguished  critic  declare  that 
French  furniture  made  him  "positively  uncomfort- 
able " — as  he  phrased  it — and  that  he  could  not 
easily  compose  himself  for  thought  in  a  room  so 
furnished. 

Many  appear  to  have  experienced  a  similar 
sensation,  and  the  explanation  probably  lies  in 
the  temperament  of  the  beholder.  Facing  sur- 
roundings and  objects  pitched  in  a  higher  key  than 
that  in  which  he  ordinarily  moves,  the  "plain  man" 
is  discomfited  by  the  wrench  of  trying  to  adjust 
himself  to  the  indoor  living  conditions  of  an  old 
regime  that  had  surrounded  itself  with  a  rare 
brilliance  and  beauty  of  equipment. 

"5 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

The  abundant  use  of  gilt,  of  delicate  embroideries 
and  tapestries,  the  manifold  use  of  ornamental  bronze 
decoration — all  this  richness  that  plays  so  great  a 
part  in  the  composition  of  fine  French  pieces,  is 
out  of  sympathy  with  our  homelier  moods,  and  even 
with  the  very  thoughts  and  manners  of  to-day. 

But  whatever  the  cause  of  this  distaste  that 
sometimes  makes  itself  audible,  its  existence  shows 
the  risk  there  is  of  underestimating  or  ignoring  this 
important  section  of  the  Wallace  Collection.  Before 
discussing  the  rare  objects  it  contains,  therefore, 
it  may  be  permissible  briefly  to  review  the  position 
of  French  furniture  and  its  claims  to  our  regard. 
Otherwise  the  visitor  may  look  on  its  presence  as 
no  more  than  a  pleasant  accessory  to  the  pictures. 

Now  we  may  safely  say  that  few  visitors  enter- 
tain a  suspicion  that  the  Wallace  Collection  is 
probably  more  memorable  for  its  collection  of 
furniture  than  for  its  pictures.  This  view  may 
appear  startling  to  some,  yet  it  is  held  by  many 
competent  judges. 

Here  is  their  argument.  While  the  collection 
of  pictures  here  takes  a  respectable  place  among 
the  first  two  dozen  art  galleries  of  Europe,  the 
collection  of  furniture  is  equalled  by  few  and  perhaps 
excelled  by  none  in  the  world.  The  furniture  at 
the  Louvre  equals,  or  some  may  think  even  slightly 
116 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

excels,  that  of  Hertford  House,  and  such  collections 
as  those  at  the  Musee  des  Arts  Decoratifs  in  Paris 
or  at  Versailles  and  Fontainebleau,  or  our  own 
Jones  Collection  at  South  Kensington  come  in  as 
near  rivals.  But  there  are  few  other  serious  com- 
petitors, and  a  student  of  the  great  masterpieces 
of  furniture  must  perforce  come  to  the  Wallace 
Collection  to  see  many  of  its  best  examples  if 
he  would  make  his  survey  at  all  adequate. 

But  this  only  indicates  the  importance  of  this 
section  in  a  relative  sense.  Its  real  and  paramount 
charm  rests  on  more  positive  grounds :  on  the 
fascination  of  its  art  and  on  its  widespread  influence 
on  European  design  and  decoration  in  the  last  two 
hundred  years. 

It  is  true  that  during  this  period  Italy,  with  its 
own  art  traditions,  still  held  its  own,  and  even  helped 
France  with  suggestive  ideas;  that  Holland  main- 
tained for  the  most  part  its  own  characteristic  work, 
even  markedly  impressing  these  features  on  England 
through  the  reigns  of  William  and  Mary  and  Queen 
Anne.  But  outside  these  exceptions,  France,  from 
about  1670  to  1780  or  1790,  led  the  taste  of  "  polite  " 
Europe  in  matters  of  furniture  and  to  a  considerable 
degree  dictated  the  prevalent  design.  Throughout 
this  period  Austria,  Germany,  Belgium,  Sweden, 
Russia  and  Great  Britain  either  imported  French 
117 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

furniture  or  were  guided  by  it  considerably  to  modify 
their  native  tradition. 

For  two  reigns,  as  already  mentioned,  England 
slighted  French  influence,  but  France  triumphed 
in  the  end,  as  it  had  in  the  beginning.  As  early  as 
Stuart  times  we  see  France  dictating  the  forms  of 
the  high-backed  chairs,  console  tables  and  heavy 
armoires  of  the  wealthy,  these  heavy  pieces  being 
either  imported  or  adopted  from  France. 

Later  again,  through  the  reigns  of  the  third  and 
fourth  Georges,  we  see  its  influence  on  our  designers. 
Hepplewhite,  Sheraton  and  Chippendale  illustrated 
in  their  catalogues  so-called  French  designs,  frank 
imitations,  and  in  their  more  personal  work  were 
obviously  indebted  in  some  directions  to  prevailing 
French  types. 

Intrinsically,  French  furniture  has  the  most  vital 
claims  on  our  admiration  by  reason  of  its  beauty 
and  sense  for  style.  By  this  sense  for  style  we 
mean  the  fitness,  unity  and  relation  of  pieces  of 
furniture  to  the  interior  decoration  and  aspect  of 
a  room  as  a  whole,  which  was  always  tenaciously 
held  by  French  architects  and  designers. 

Unfortunately,  this   sense   for   the   completeness 

of  the   whole   impression   of  an   interior,   as   it   is 

affected  by  its  contents,  cannot  be  seen  at  Hertford 

House — save  perhaps  in  the  great  gallery  upstairs. 

118 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

For  the  very  wealth  of  the  collection  in  the  space 
at  disposal  implies  a  crowding  of  the  contents  that 
is  fatal. 

The  existing  crowded  aspect  of  the  rooms  takes 
on  somewhat  the  air  of  a  well-arranged  warehouse 
or  dealer's  shop.  In  this  proximity  to  each  other 
the  very  richness  of  the  pieces  of  furniture  cloys  the 
sense,  making,  as  it  were,  the  quality  of  these  pieces 
their  reproach. 

This  decorative  furniture  was  for  the  most  part 
designed  for  spacious  and  lofty  rooms,  where  it  was 
grouped  parsimoniously  in  centres  and  sub-centres 
with  intervening  breadth  of  empty  spaces  and  a 
prearranged  background.  In  its  original  sur- 
roundings the  richness  of  colour  and  decoration  gave 
the  necessary  fulness  and  concentration  here  and 
there,  which  was  required  to  save  the  general  aspect 
from  a  note  of  baldness  and  over-simplicity.  Thus 
disposed,  the  furniture  glowed  with  proper  interest 
amid  surrounding  spaciousness  and  against  formally 
decorated  and  usually  pictureless  walls. 

How  existing  conditions  at  Hertford  House  tell 
against  the  sense  of  style  in  the  furniture  becomes 
further  evident  when  we  consider  the  circumstances 
of  its  origin.  Fine  French  pieces  were  largely 
designed  or  controlled  by  the  distinguished  archi- 
tects of  the  time,  and  were  executed  by  members 
119 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

of  the  most  accomplished  schools  of  cabinet-makers 
(ebenistes)  Europe  has  seen.  Each  piece  carried  out 
and  expressed  the  designer's  unity  of  intention  for 
a  complete  scheme,  and,  viewed  separately,  detached 
from  their  original  surroundings,  the  beauty  and 
sense  of  style  aimed  at  in  the  parts  can  only  be 
imperfectly  suggested. 

Some  day,  perhaps,  when  the  top-lit  galleries  on 
the  second  floor  are  completed  and  opened,  the 
present  distinguished  Director — greatly  daring — 
will  take  his  life  in  his  hands,  as  it  were,  and  empty 
one  of  his  rooms,  decorate  it  fitly,  and  only  bring 
out  of  the  storeroom  such  pieces  as  allow  of  a 
comfortable  spacious  setting.  This,  at  least,  is  a 
pleasant  fancy  wherewith  to  tease  our  hopes. 

The  other  qualities  which  contribute  towards  the 
premier  position  occupied  by  French  furniture  can 
be  felt  here  more  readily.  Prominent  among  these 
is  the  beauty  of  compact,  chastened  form.  Adding 
a  little  emphasis  here,  refining  and  paring  down  a 
little  there,  the  great  cabinet-makers  worked  in 
a  continuous  tradition  till,  as  time  went  on,  the 
finished  product  became  the  polished  result  of  many 
minds.  This  gradually  matured  suavity  and  com- 
pactness of  form,  with  its  delicately  measured 
emphasis,  is  common  to  most  of  the  pieces  at 
Hertford  House  that  date  from  the  late  years  of 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

Louis  XIV.,  the  period  of  the  Regency,  and  onwards 
to  the  last  year  or  two  of  Louis  XV.  These  last 
years,  by  the  way,  include  the  complete  development 
of  the  so-called  Louis  XVI.  style  in  all  its  essential 
features.  These  limits  have  to  be  named,  since  we 
must  be  careful  not  to  push  the  claim  for  fine  form 
too  far.  No  doubt  a  good  deal  of  work  done  during 
the  actual  reign  of  Louis  XVI.  designed  and  executed 
by  such  master  ebenistes  as  Riesener,  Gouthiere  and 
Saunier,  still  maintained  form  as  a  fine  feature  :  but 
the  general  tendency  through  this  reign  was  on  the 
whole  either  towards  heaviness,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  commodes,  or  towards  triviality  and  smallness 
of  parts. 

This  fineness  of  finished  form  must  in  part  account 
for  the  fact  that  each  of  the  French  styles — familiarly 
known  as  Louis  Quatorze,  Regency,  Louis  Quinze 
and  Louis  Seize — when  once  evolved  was  never 
subsequently  dropped.  Pieces  in  each  style  con- 
tinued to  be  made,  notwithstanding  the  attraction 
of  the  succeeding  fashion,  so  that  each  style  per- 
sisted through  its  successors  right  up  to  the  present 
day.  For  example,  we  may  have  a  piece  typical  of 
the  Louis  XIV.  style  made  during  the  Regency  or 
the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  and  abundantly  turned  out 
in  the  time  of  Louis  XVI.  and  the  Restoration. 

It  is  this  constancy  of  types,  when  once  evolved, 
121 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

that  makes  it  so  difficult  nowadays  to  settle  the  date 
of  most  old  pieces  and  causes  assignations  frequently 
to  be  a  matter  of  dispute  even  among  experts.  In 
passing  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  French  ebenistes 
often  signed  work  they  regarded  as  a  masterpiece, 
and  their  fortunate  habit  in  so  doing  occasionally 
comes  in  as  a  determining  factor  of  origin  and  date. 

Hence  it  happens  that  what  is  called  a  "  period 
piece" — that  is  to  say,  one  which  by  internal  evi- 
dence or  pedigree  is  proved  to  have  been  made 
when  its  style  was  originally  evolved — becomes  of 
surpassing  value  and  interest.  One  great  merit  of 
the  Wallace  furniture  is  that  so  much  of  it  consists 
of  "period  pieces"  made  by  great  ebenistes  who 
developed  the  style  and  were  leaders  in  the  move- 
ment. When  we  have  appreciated  the  style  and 
form,  we  must  note  the  use  of  colour,  which  is  one 
of  the  distinguishing  features  of  French  furniture. 

First  we  may  call  attention  to  its  use  for  a  scheme 
of  sober  richness,  obtained  largely  by  means  of  the 
fine  marquetry  of  woods,  or  boulle  inlay,  that  forms 
the  body  of  so  many  pieces.  Secondly,  we  should 
realise  what  is  a  still  more  conspicuous  characteristic 
during  the  reign  of  Louis  XV. — namely,  the  introduc- 
tion then  and  successful  use  of  delicate  gay  schemes 
of  colour  in  a  higher  key  than  had  been  previously 
used  in  Europe.  This  is  shown  at  Hertford  House 
122 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

in  the  way  the  new  tapestry  colour  schemes  were 
applied  to  cover  chairs,  screens  and  settees ;  whose 
frames  of  gilt  carved  wood  supported  the  scheme. 
What  we  miss  here  is  the  correspondingly  lighter 
wall  decoration  of  the  period,  for  without  this 
accompaniment  the  very  merits  of  the  pieces  are 
apt  to  distort  them  into  a  slightly  highly  strung 
key. 

This  new  colour  scheme,  employing  tones  of  rose, 
dove-grey,  delicate  blues  and  greens,  became  known 
as  la  decoration  claire.  It  seems  to  have  originated 
from  Fran9ois  Boucher  and  his  practice  as  a  painter. 
Certainly  it  was  brought  into  general  use  by  his 
appointment,  first  as  Inspector  of  the  Tapestry 
Manufactory  of  Beauvais,  and  afterwards — from 
1755  to  1765 — at  the  Gobelins.  It  was  Boucher 
who  insisted  on  the  weavers  and  artists  abandoning 
the  old  low-toned  schemes  of  rich  colour  which 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  work  in,  and  made 
them  adopt  the  high-keyed,  gayer  schemes  of  his 
own  palette. 

Boucher  had  no  little  trouble  with  his  workmen 
before  he  could  bring  about  the  change.  They 
declared  his  new  dyes  would  fade,  and  some  ran 
away  altogether  rather  than  participate  in  his 
"new-fangled"  ideas.  But  Court  and  society  at 
once  welcomed  his  new  schemes  with  open  arms, 
123 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

for  they  exactly  fitted  the  gaiety  and  temper  of  the 
time.  Examples  of  these  delicate  tapestries,  pro- 
duced under  Boucher's  direction,  are  included  in 
the  Wallace  Collection. 

In  some  directions,  as  already  hinted,  motives  of 
decoration  came  from  Italy  to  France,  though  in  the 
latter  country  they  were  always  modified  in  use 
and  were  worked  out  with  the  French  instinct  for 
unity  and  harmony,  as  opposed  to  the  Italian  love 
of  glitter  and  emphasis. 

The  so-called  "  Boulle " 1  inlay  that  we  see  so 
much  of  here — which  is  an  arabesque  pattern  made 
of  tortoise-shell,  and  engraved  brass  and  white  metals 
— is  a  modified  use  of  an  older  Italian  practice. 
It  is  not,  as  often  supposed,  the  invention  of  the 
great  ebeniste,  Andre  Boulle,  for  it  was  used  in 
France  still  earlier;  but  his  great  reputation  and 
frequent  use  of  it  throughout  a  long  life  has  made 
his  name  associated  with  it  ever  since. 

France  also  took  from  Italy  the  initial  precedent 

of    applying   bronze    mounts   to    furniture   and    of 

gilding    that    metal,    but    largely    developed    its 

principle  and  practice.  In  French  hands  the  metal 

mountings   of  pieces  are   invariably   richly   gilt   as 

well  as  very  finely  chased   by  the   highly  trained 

engravers  (ciseleurs)  of  the  time,  whilst  their  forms 

1  Sometimes  spelt  "  Buhl." 

124 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

were  in  many  cases  designed  by  the  leading  sculptors 
of  the  time. 

This  application  of  gilt  bronze  (ormolu)  mounts  to 
the  feet,  legs  and  other  outlines  of  the  form,  is  the 
most  persistent  feature  of  its  ornament,  running 
through  all  the  styles  in  succession.  It  can  be  seen 
on  almost  all  pieces  at  Hertford  House,  and  will  be 
noticed  in  the  accompanying  illustrations.  It  was 
always  the  most  costly  item  in  its  production — the 
great  artists  in  it  requiring  and  obtaining  enormous 
prices  for  the  work.  Of  the  estimation  in  which  it 
is  held  to-day  we  occasionally  get  a  glimpse  in  the 
saleroom,  when  some  piece  of  Oriental  porcelain, 
intrinsically  worth,  say,  £100,  but  with  ormolu  mounts 
of  a  fine  French  period,  brings  seven  or  eight 
hundred  pounds.  Mention  has  already  been  made 
of  the  use  of  rich  exotic  and  stained  woods  for  the 
body  of  French  furniture.  As  produced  by  such 
great  ebenistes  as  Cressent  and  Riesener,  particularly 
the  latter,  it  was  applied  to  the  body  of  the  piece 
in  patterns  of  the  utmost  delicacy  and  of  con- 
summate workmanship ;  and  the  presence  of  this 
marquetry  of  woods  is  one  of  the  striking  things  in 
the  total  effect  of  French  furniture  all  through  its 
history,  giving  its  main  form  a  sober  richness  that 
enabled  it  to  carry  without  bizarre  effect  the  piquant 
pointing  of  its  metal  mounts. 

"5 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

The  only  other  staple  decoration  of  the  body  of  a 
piece  was  the  triumphant  French  use  of  the  choicest 
Japanese  lacquer  and  French  substitutes  for  the 
same.  Some  of  the  French  commodes  of  the  more 
restrained  Louis  XV.  design,  cased  throughout  in 
rare  Japanese  lacquer,  with  its  colour  element 
in  relief  upon  the  dazzling  black  ground,  and 
surrounded  by  gilt  bronze  mounts,  may  be  con- 
sidered as  the  most  distinguished  and  complete 
result  the  furniture-art  has  ever  evolved  in  Europe. 
These  rare  pieces,  however,  emanate  from  two 
continents,  the  panels  for  them  having  been  sent 
to  Japan  to  be  lacquered  and  thence  sent  back 
to  France,  a  proceeding  which  sometimes  meant 
the  lapse  of  years  before  an  order  could  be 
completed. 

But,  for  the  most  part,  the  lacquer  used  in  French 
furniture  was  of  French  make.  By  far  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  producers  of  lacquer  in  France 
was  the  Martin  family,  who  worked  during  the  reign 
of  Louis  XV.  and  adopted  European  fanciful  figures 
and  flowers  as  decoration  in  place  of  Oriental  motives. 
Unfortunately  there  is  no  example  of  the  Martin's 
work  in  this  collection — it  is  now  rare  anywhere.1 
But  the  Martins'  influence  and  fame  may  still  be 

l  An  example  will  be  found  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum, 
South  Kensington. 

126 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

measured  by  our  adoption  of  the  term  verni-martin 
for  all  lacquers  of  this  class  and  style. 

It  is  now  time  to  notice  some  of  the  furniture  in 
detail.  In  doing  this  it  seems  simplest  to  take  it  in 
the  order  of  the  styles,  beginning  with  that  known 
as  Louis  Quatorze.  This  style  got  its  main  direction 
from  Le  Brun,  who  was  then  at  the  head  of  the 
Academy  and  virtual  controller  of  taste  in  France. 
Its  settled  aspect  was  a  grave  dignity  and  formalism, 
caused,  in  a  small  degree,  by  the  free  use  of  ebony, 
but  for  the  most  part  by  the  sturdy  forms  of  the 
pieces.  The  distinguishing  qualities  of  the  style  are 
its  severe  constructive  lines  and  ample  mass,  based 
upon  the  rather  florid  classic  traditions  then  current  in 
France.  There  are  no  examples  of  the  earlier  types  at 
Hertford  House.  The  pieces  here  are  a  little  later 
in  date,  when  solidity  of  aspect  was  being  lightened 
by  the  application  of  metal  plaques  to  surfaces  and 
by  an  arabesque  inlay  of  tortoise-shell  and  metals, 
as  we  see  in  the  decoration  of  the  ebony  cabinet 
(IX.,  4).  This  rich  boulle  inlay,  together  with  a 
spare  use,  as  yet,  of  metal  mounts,  the  modified  use 
of  ebony,  and  also,  markedly,  the  gradual  increase  in 
the  use  of  rich  coloured  woods,  are  the  prominent 
features  of  Louis  XIV.  furniture. 

The  great  cabinet-maker,  Andre  Charles  Boulle,  is 
the  central  figure  of  the  period.  Rarely  gifted  as 
127 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

an  artist,  he  shared  Rembrandt's  passion  for  collect- 
ing beautiful  things ;  and  after  a  life  of  affluence  he 
died,  like  Rembrandt,  in  poverty.  In  his  matured 
and  late  work  he  loosened  the  formality  in  the 
outlines  of  his  furniture,  and  also  readily  took 
up  the  fanciful  motives  of  great  contemporary  de- 
signers like  Berain  and  Gillot — who  were  intro- 
ducing a  new  temper  and  foreshadowing  the  liberty 
and  lightness  of  the  succeeding  style,  Regence. 
The  fanciful  waywardness  of  Berain's  ornament  can 
be  seen  on  the  top  of  his  ebony  console  table 
(XXL,  44).  Towards  the  end  of  Louis's  reign  we 
see  the  approaching  change  taking  a  very  definite 
character.  A  late  and  beautiful  Louis  XIV.  table, 
by  Boulle  (XVI.,  43)  has  taken  on  a  new  suavity  of 
form  and  looks  almost  like  a  completed  Regency 
piece.  This  fact  illustrates  what  we  shall  notice 
repeatedly — namely,  that  each  successive  style  was 
almost  fully  developed  before  the  nominal  period  of 
the  older  one  had  ended. 1  The  splendid  workman- 
ship and  exquisite  finish  of  Boulle's  pieces  can  be 
seen  at  Hertford  House  in  his  writing-table  (IX., 
27)  and  his  cabinet  (IX.,  4),  surmounted  by  a  bronze 
group. 

1  This  notably  happened  in  the  development  of  the  style 
Louis  Seize,  which  was  completed  in  all  its  best  features  before 
Louis  Seize  came  to  the  throne. 

128 


UPRIGHT  SECRETAIRE  XVIII  12 

Riesener 


BUREAU  TOILETTE  XVIII  20 

Oeben 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

Already  we  have  reached  what  is  called  the  style 
Regence,  quietly  arriving  there  during  the  last  years 
of  Louis  XIV.  With  this  new  epoch — which  takes  its 
name  from  the  Regent  Philip  of  Orleans  (1715-1723) 
— there  appears  a  new  note  in  the  furnishing  of  rooms. 
This  may  be  called  the  modern  or  personal  note,  as 
opposed  to  the  older  impersonal  note  of  dignity  and 
formal  design.  This  note  of  individuality  in  the 
choice  of  the  applied  decoration  continues  to  hold 
its  own  through  subsequent  styles  until  about  1 790, 
when  a  severe  classicism  set  in. 

Its  appearance  was  the  inevitable  response  to  the 
appeal  of  the  individual  to  be  surrounded  with 
charm  and  geniality  in  the  personal  adornment  of 
his  living  rooms.  It  grows  in  force  until  it  over- 
reaches itself  some  seventy  years  later. 

The  change  shows  itself  at  first  slowly  in  the  walls 
and  permanent  fittings  of  the  salon  by  a  decoration 
which,  though  still  stately,  is  lighter  and  more 
genial.  In  the  furniture  it  evolves  more  rapidly, 
adding  more  suavity  and  fluency  to  their  lighter 
forms  and  showing  an  increase  of  graciousness  and 
personal  fancy  in  the  applied  decoration.  The  frolic- 
some motives  of  Berain  and  Gillott  have,  in  fact,  got 
a  firm  hold,  and  the  allure  of  Chinese  figures  and 
invention  are  assisting  in  the  same  direction.  The 
architects,  Robert  de  Cotte  and  Oppenord,  helped  to 
I  129 


THE    WALLACE   COLLECTION 

bring  about  the  change,  but  it  was,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  air. 

In  furniture  design  and  decoration  the  central 
and  great  figure  of  this  period  and  style  is  Charles 
Cressent.  Like  so  many  of  the  great  ebenistes  of  the 
time,  he  was  a  distinguished  sculptor  and  worker  in 
metals.  Also  he  was  the  son  of  a  sculptor,  and  had 
the  considerable  advantage  of  being  a  pupil  of  the 
great  Boulle.  So  excellent  an  authority  as  M.  Saglio 
regards  him  as  the  best  decorative  artist  of  the 
century.  There  is  only  one  work  in  the  Wallace 
Collection  which  can  be  said  to  be  by  him — and, 
unfortunately,  there  are  but  few  examples  of  the 
Regency  style — a  graceful  writing-table  (35)  with 
the  espagnolettes  (charming  heads  of  women)  at 
the  corners,  rather  suggestive  of  Watteau's  types 
of  beauty.  Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the 
ebony  console  table  (XXI.,  44);  and  other  Regency 
pieces  are  a  cabinet  (I.,  12)  in  various  woods, 
surmounted  by  a  clock,  and  the  fine  monumental 
clock  (II.,  26)  of  boulle  and  gilt  bronze,  a  fully 
developed  Regence  piece  showing  the  influence  of 
De  Cotte. 

As  we  might  expect,  there  is  no  sudden  transition 
between  the  style  of  the  Regency  and  that  of  Louis 
Quinze,  but  only  a  gradual  development  and  emphasis 
of  its  tendency.  The  Louis  Quinze  is,  in  fact,  simply 

130 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

the  opening  out  of  a  continuous  tradition.  In  a 
modified  way  the  change  bears  some  resemblance  to 
the  contemporary  English  change  from  the  earlier 
Georgian  types  to  Chippendale's  full  and  florid 
manner.  The  new  curves  become  more  pronounced, 
general  and  much  more  profuse.  The  principle  of 
the  cabriole  leg  and  its  curve  is  universally  applied 
to  chairs,  tables,  sofas  and  console  tables ;  finished 
in  the  case  of  chairs  and  sofas  with  a  small  vertical 
toe,  and  in  other  pieces,  where  ormolu  mounts  are 
used,  with  little  metal  sabots.  The  use  of  this 
cabriole  form  is  a  very  distinguishing  feature  for  the 
beginner,  and  is  easily  recognisable  amongst  the 
objects  at  Hertford  House. 

The  straight  line  disappeared  everywhere  in  the 
new  furniture.  The  outlines  of  chairs,  tables, 
cabinets,  etc.,  are  all  bounded  by  curves,  as  also  are 
the  decorative  panels  they  contain.  These  curves 
too  develop  a  new  characteristic.  On  account  of  the 
length  of  the  curve,  and  the  frequency  and  duplica- 
tion with  which  it  was  now  employed,  the  sweep 
had  to  be  relieved  in  some  way  to  avoid  a  sense  of 
weakness.  It  was  checked  with  a  slight  arrest  here 
and  there ;  being,  in  fact,  broken  up  into  two 
inverted  sections,  as  we  get  roughly  by  arranging 
the  letters  g  one  under  the  other  with  reversed  faces. 
The  inside  faces  of  the  reversed  curve  were  also 


THE   WALLACE    COLLECTION 

punctuated  by  allowing  the  tips  of  leaves  to  emerge 
slightly  in  the  same  direction.  This  is  the  new 
feature  omnipresent  and  unmistakable  in  all  Louis 
Quinze  furniture.  It  was  adapted  from  prevailing 
Italian  usage,  but  modified  and  chastened  by 
French  designers.  In  the  ablest  hands  this  feature 
gave  a  wonderful  suavity  and  movement  to  the 
form,  just  as  in  less  restrained  hands — like  Meis- 
sonnier's — it  induced  a  florid  exuberance  that  is 
often  bewildering  and  weak. 

On  all  furniture  of  this  period  there  is  also  an  en- 
larged use  of  the  richly  chased  gilt  bronze  mounts, 
that  now  trespass  somewhat  from  the  outlines  and 
not  seldom  sweep  energetically  over  the  enclosed 
panels.  There  can  be  no  doubt  these  beautiful 
metal  mounts  were  regarded  by  their  contemporaries 
as  the  distinguished  feature  of  their  furniture.  The 
best  sculptors  and  metal-workers  of  the  day  were 
employed  to  produce  them,  and  the  cost  of  the  work 
was  enormous. 

Caffieri  is,  perhaps,  still  the  most  celebrated  of  the 
artists  who  wrought  on  them  at  this  time :  and  rare 
as  signed  and  identified  pieces  of  his  work  are  now, 
the  Wallace  Collection  happily  possesses  several  of 
these  masterpieces.  Most  important  of  these  is  the 
great  commode  (XVI.,  58).  The  illustration  barely 
hints  at  its  splendid  effect,  but  it  serves  to  show 
132 


the  simple  strength  of  the  piece  as  a  whole  and  the 
virile  spring  and  sense  of  flow  in  the  metal  orna- 
ment, as  it  climbs  almost  unduly  over  the  curves  of 
the  swelling  bombe  front.  The  more  elaborate 
ormolu  mounts,  with  heavy  swags  of  flowers  that 
were  soon  to  follow,  lose  this  sense  of  energetic 
spring  and  look  merely  ornate. 

The  great  chandelier  (II.,  47)  of  gilt  bronze  is 
another  of  Caffieri's  signed  masterpieces.  Lady  Dilke 
mentions  the  tradition  that  it  was  given  by  Louis 
XV.  to  Don  Philip  of  Spain  on  his  marriage  with 
Louise  Elizabeth  of  France  ;  it  is  certain  that  it  was 
recovered  in  recent  times  at  Modena  in  Spain. 

It  would  be  unpardonable  not  to  note  here  another 
great  commode  (XVI.,  57),  equally  celebrated,  which 
is  one  of  Cressent's  masterpieces,  though  made  late 
in  life  in  the  Louis  XV.  style.  It  has  the  same 
proud  front  as  Caffieri's  piece,  with  even  a  note  of 
magnificence  added  by  the  device  of  so  firmly  mark- 
ing the  centre  of  the  piece  with  the  bronze  head 
surrounded  with  bold  casing.  This  noble  emphasis 
is  strengthened  again  by  the  way  the  whorls  of  palm 
and  ornament  gather  volume  as  they  move  to  right 
and  left  and  finally  lend  their  mass  to  the  sturdy 
metal-work  at  the  outer  angles.  Two  spirited  metal 
dragons  form  the  handles,  and  the  final  mergence  of 
their  forms  into  conventional  ornament  is  skilful  and 

133 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

elusive,  like  other  work  of  the  date,  as  also  is  the 
passage  of  the  bronze  forms  at  the  corners  into  their 
surrounding  frill ;  this  feature  recalls  some  great 
modern  efforts  in  the  same  direction. 

The  vigour  and  vitality  of  this  commode  may 
well  be  contrasted  with  the  later  large  bureau  by 
Riesener  in  the  same  room,  where  the  heavy  floral 
swags  and  newer  ornament  seem  merely  to  lie  in 
lazy  luxuriance  on  the  marquetry. 

Nor  can  we  pass  over  the  restrained  chef-d'oeuvre 
of  Oeben,  the  bureau  toilette  (XVIII.,  20),  though 
it  is  slightly  later  in  date,  and  shows  signs  of  the 
reaction  in  favour  of  severer  lines  that  came  in 
towards  the  close  of  the  reign.  Oeben  had  the 
distinction  of  being  employed  by  the  Marquise  de 
Pompadour,  whose  conspicuous  taste  and  intuition 
in  matters  of  art  almost  reached  the  point  of 
genius. 

We  are  now  approaching  the  period  when  great 
changes  were  to  come  about.  Apart  from  its  rich, 
severe  charm  this  fine  piece  of  Oeben's  has  a  great 
significance.  It  is  the  early  sign  of  a  new  departure 
that  is  finally  to  lead  to  the  radical  change  of  the 
style  called  Louis  Seize  with  its  severe  straight  lines 
and  elaboration  of  ornament.  The  change  came 
gradually,  as  we  shall  see.  For  the  moment  it  can 
be  perceived  in  this  bureau  toilette  by  a  certain 

134 


FRENCH   FURNITURE 

reticence  it  possesses  and  by  the  straightening  of  the 
lines  in  the  body  of  the  piece. 

Similar  features  are  marked  in  the  large  bureau 
(XVI.,  66)  made  by  Oeben's  pupil  and  successor, 
Riesener,  for  the  King  of  Poland.  The  older 
marquetry  of  quiet  pattern  is  here  enriched  by  a 
beautiful  inlay  of  flowers,  birds  and  fanciful  designs ; 
and  these  are  made  conspicuous  against  the  quieter 
marquetry  by  being  executed  in  lighter  and  delicately 
stained  woods. 

An  elaboration  of  inlay  is  one  of  the  significant 
features  of  the  approaching  style.  Also  of  the  same 
period  is  the  noble  Bureau  de  Roi  in  the  Louvre, 
made  by  Oeben  and  Riesener,  whose  magnificence 
of  aspect  seems  to  have  induced  Lord  Hertford  to 
commission  the  splendid  copy  (XVI.,  68)  in  the 
Wallace  Collection.  This  fine  replica,  with  its  mounts 
by  Dasson,  is  said  to  have  cost  something  like  three 
thousand  pounds  and  to  have  taken  three  years  to 
make.  Its  profusion  of  ornament  befits  its  desti- 
nation for  the  King  of  France,  whose  initials  were 
once  elaborately  intertwined  in  the  spaces  now  filled 
by  the  biscuit  plaques  on  the  sides.  This  great 
piece  shows  brilliantly  the  new  splendid  marquetry 
we  have  noticed.  And  its  chased  and  gilt  mounts, 
here  intertwined  with  ribbon  scrolls,  take  on  the 
heavy  swags  of  foliage  and  flowers  that  are  dis- 

135 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

placing  older   motives  adapted  from  acanthus  and 
palm. 

With  the  completion  of  this  work  the  Louis 
Seize  style  sets  in  and  very  rapidly  develops. 
Hertford  House  is  richest  in  furniture  of  this  period, 
and  we  will  notice  its  outstanding  characteristics, 
so  that  the  visitor  may  recognise  pieces  in  the 
collection.  The  straight  line  is  its  marked  and 
central  feature,  and  was  adhered  to  with  insistent 
virtuosity,  alike  in  the  legs  of  furniture,  in  the 
rectangular  forms  of  the  body  and  the  framing 
in  of  the  panels.  Further,  the  use  of  the  frieze 
is  introduced  as  a  feature  in  tables  large  and  small, 
commodes,  cabinets  and  escritoires,  placed,  of  course, 
just  under  the  cornice  at  the  top,  and  marked  off 
very  sharply  with  surrounding  rectangular  lines. 
Some  curves  remain  in  the  backs  of  sofas  and  chairs, 
but  this  is  the  only  exception  to  the  rule,  and  even 
here  the  prevailing  aspect  of  these  objects  comes 
within  the  general  principle. 

Another  noticeable  mark  of  the  style  is  the 
slighter  size  and  build  of  the  pieces.  The  only 
exceptions  to  this  are  some  ponderous  commodes 
made  at  the  very  end  of  the  reign,  and  those 
cabinets  with  boulle  ornament  that  were  so  much 
made  again  in  this  reign  in  the  style  of  the 
Louis  XIV.  period. 

136 


FRENCH    FURNITURE 

This  general  lightness  of  form  was  in  sympathy 
with  the  delicacy  of  the  newer  marquetry ;  and 
in  common  agreement  with  these,  the  applied 
ormolu  mounts  became  lighter  and  more  refined. 
The  metal  mounts  of  this  period  cannot  be 
dismissed  without  paying  them  some  attention.  In 
shedding  the  earlier  vigorous  features  that  had 
been  in  keeping  with  a  larger  intention,  they 
took  on  designs  of  delicately  chiselled  flowers  and 
borders  of  conventional  ornament,  whose  chasing 
was  carried  to  a  pitch  of  costly  and  exquisite 
refinement  that  resembles  goldsmiths'  work.  The 
refined  charm  of  this  new  style,  as  it  developed, 
may  be  readily  imagined. 

Riesener,  who  is  its  great  figure,  was  the  eminent 
French  master  of  delicate  inlays  of  coloured  woods, 
and  also  no  mean  designer  and  worker  in  metals. 
So  famous  was  his  work  with  the  great  connoisseurs 
of  the  period,  and  so  great  the  prices  he  obtained, 
that  in  the  prime  of  life  he  had  amassed  an  enormous 
fortune.  But  he  too  died  in  comparative  poverty, 
ruined  late  in  life  by  the  Revolution.  Throughout 
his  mature  life  he  worked  very  continuously  for 
Marie  Antoinette,  and  quite  a  number  of  the  pieces 
he  made  for  her  are  at  Hertford  House. 

Amongst  these  is  the  lovely  commode  (XVIII.,  18), 
with  the  characteristic  lozenge-shaped  inlay,  and 

137 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

the  initials  of  the  Queen  in  metal  intertwined  with 
roses  and  flowers  in  the  centre  of  the  frieze.  In 
the  same  room  is  an  upright  secretaire  (12),  in  the 
back  of  which  her  cypher  appears  with  the  words : 
Garde  Meuble  de  la  Reine. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  official  catalogue  in 
its  notice  of  these  two  pieces  attributes  their 
chased  metal  mounts  in  part  to  Gouthiere,  and 
it  would  be  impossible  to  close  this  chapter  without 
a  passing  reference  to  the  most  celebrated  worker 
in  gilt  mounts  of  the  period.  Though  Gouthiere 
was  also  one  of  the  great  cabinet-makers,  it  is 
upon  his  chiselled  work  in  metal  that  his  fame 
rests.  Gouthiere  is  said  to  have  "acquired  such 
extraordinary  skill  as  a  chaser  as  to  have  been  able 
to  make  bronze  look  like  gold."  He  began  his 
career  by  working  for  the  luxurious  Madame  du 
Barry,  and  consequently  from  his  hand  came  the 
work  so  enthusiastically  referred  to  by  M.  Saglio 
as  "the  dainty  delicate  fairylike  creations  that  made 
up  the  furniture  of  the  chatelaine  of  Louveciennes." 

Gouthiere  claimed  to  have  invented  the  new  dead 
surface  given  at  this  date  to  the  gilt.  His  master- 
piece, the  perfume-burner  (XIV.,  15),  is  reproduced 
here  in  order  to  give  a  slight  idea  of  the  lovely 
design  of  the  metal-work  that  supports  the  rich 
red  jasper  bowl.  Thomire,  his  contemporary  and 

138 


FRENCH    FURNITURE 

assistant,  was  almost  equally  famous,  and  the  Wallace 
Collection  contains  many  examples  of  his  skill. 

We  have  now  reached  the  end  of  the  great 
period.  Henceforward  the  design  of  the  furniture 
becomes  trivial  and  effeminate,  and  its  decoration 
overloaded  as  well  as  extravagant  in  type.  The 
famous  ebenistes,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  great 
French  traditions,  whether  of  foreign  extraction  like 
Caffieri,  Slodtz,  Oeben  and  Riesener,  or  of  purely 
French  descent,  were  either  long  since  dead  or 
were  being  displaced  by  foreigners  like  Weisweiller, 
Schwerdfeger  and  Beneman,  who  spoke  Marie 
Antoinette's  language  and  were  encouraged  by  her 
to  settle  in  France  and  work  to  her  order. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  finally  swamped 
these  efforts,  and  brought  about  the  strong  reaction 
for  classic  design  which  we  know  as  "Directoire" 
and  "Empire."  The  members  of  the  distinguished 
family  who  gradually  built  up  the  great  collection 
at  Hertford  House  seem  to  have  ignored  these  new 
styles,  and  therefore  to  notice  them  is  outside  the 
scope  of  this  book. 


139 


PORCELAIN 

THE  porcelain  at  Hertford  House  is  almost  all 
French.  Outside  the  china  of  Vincennes  and 
Sevres  there  are  only  some  couple  of  pieces  of  Capo 
di  Monte,  one  of  Dresden,  and  under  a  dozen 
examples  of  Chinese.  The  Capo  di  Monte,  figures 
in  white,  are  good  but  not  remarkable  specimens 
of  the  factory,  and  the  Dresden  vase  (II.,  5)  is  most 
interesting  for  its  ormolu  mounts  by  Caffieri.  The 
only  exceptional  pieces  not  of  French  origin  are 
the  Chinese  celadon  vases  (XIV.,  Case  A),  which 
are  also  splendidly  mounted  in  metal. 

This  bias  for  the  rare  china  of  France  might 
almost  be  assumed  from  the  direction  the  collection 
of  furniture  wisely  took,  but  most  probably  this 
common  nationality  is  a  coincidence.  Without 
positive  knowledge,  we  may  surmise  that  its  French 
exclusiveness  was  due  to  other  important  considera- 
tions. One  of  these  may  easily  have  been  the  oppor- 
tunity the  Revolution  gave  of  securing  valuable 
140 


PORCELAIN 

pieces  during  the  break  up  of  royal  and  noble 
houses  in  France.  But  the  paramount  reason  must 
have  been  the  rare  charm  and  beauty  of  the  soft 
paste  (pate  tendre)  porcelain  made  at  Sevres  and 
Vincennes.  The  collection  at  Hertford  House  is 
entirely  confined  to  the  soft  paste  ware.  There  are 
no  examples  of  the  later  hard  paste  that  was  com- 
menced at  Sevres  about  1769 — and  therefore,  so  far 
as  period  goes,  might  have  been  included.  The 
exclusion  of  this  hard  paste  is  another  indication 
of  the  wisdom  and  taste  of  the  founders  of  the 
collection  ;  for  though  its  first  production  was  looked 
upon  as  a  great  feat  and  exhibited  with  much  eclat 
to  Louis  XV.  at  Versailles,  the  new  china  was 
incapable  of  giving  the  charm  and  beauty  of  the 
earlier  material.  Any  claims  the  hard  paste  of 
Sevres  has  to  distinction  lie  in  its  very  white  body 
as  opposed  to  the  slightly  creamy  white  of  the  soft 
paste,  and  in  its  exceeding  hardness  and  ability  to 
withstand  rapid  changes  of  temperature.  To  this 
must  be  added  the  fact  that  from  a  commercial 
point  of  view  it  was  much  less  difficult  and  costly 
to  make,  owing  to  the  absence  of  accidents  in  the 
firing. 

But  on  the  artistic  side  it  could  not  compare  in 
any  degree  with  the  soft  paste.   On  the  extremely 
hard  body  of  the  new  paste,  the  richness  and  softness 
141 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

of  the  .  older  enamels  were  unobtainable.  The 
colour  decoration,  or  painting  in  coloured  enamels, 
was  hard  and  dry  in  quality,  and  thin,  on  the  body 
of  the  hard  paste,  and  quite  different  from  the  earlier 
make  with  its  well-fused  soft  tints  and  rich  fat  body. 
The  material  of  the  body  of  the  soft  paste  had 
also  the  charm  of  its  unctuous  softer  texture,  as 
opposed  to  the  more  brilliant  hard  translucence  of 
the  true  porcelain.  As  there  is  no  hard  paste 
Sevres  to  see  beside  the  older  material  in  the  cases 
at  Hertford  House,  this  cannot  be  illustrated  here  : 
nor  can  it  be  fully  realised  except  by  handling  the 
two  kinds  side  by  side.  Enough  has  been  said, 
however,  to  indicate  the  wisdom  of  the  Hertford 
family  in  restricting  their  collection  to  this  delicate 
ware. 

A  short  consideration  of  what  "  soft  paste  "  is  will 
do  much  to  explain  why  the  material  adapts  itself 
so  pre-eminently  to  the  use  of  colour;  and  as  it 
will  also  show  us  what  an  interesting  part  these 
soft  pastes  have  played  in  the  discovery  and  early 
triumphs  of  porcelain  in  Europe,  the  point  may  be 
worth  explanation. 

Soft  paste  was  first  discovered,  probably  in  Italy, 

before  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  was 

begun  to  be  made  in  France  about  1700.  Prior  to 

this  there  had  been  no  porcelain  in  Europe  except 

142 


PORCELAIN 

that  imported  from  China,  the  land  of  its  invention. 
Not  only  had  China  alone  possessed  the  secret  of 
its  production,  but  for  some  three  hundred  years  past 
it  had  been  manufacturing  it  for  the  rest  of  the  world, 
both  East  and  West — much  as  England  some  fifty 
years  ago  was  supplying  both  hemispheres  with 
cotton  fabrics. 

The  earliest  Chinese  porcelain  to  arrive  in  Europe 
seems  to  have  been  a  present  from  the  Sultan  of 
Egypt  to  Charles  VII.  of  France.  Other  pieces  came 
gradually,  reaching  Europe  by  overland  routes 
through  Egypt  to  Venice.  But  it  was  not  procur- 
able even  by  the  well-to-do  until  the  Dutch  began 
to  import  it  in  quantities  about  1650-1670.  The 
latter  of  these  years  is,  by  the  way,  the  approximate 
date  of  production  of  the  three  beautiful  Chinese 
celadon  vases  (XIV.,  24,  25,  26)  in  this  collection. 

About  1700  the  taste  for  porcelain  had  almost 
reached  the  proportions  of  a  mania.  There  was, 
in  fact,  nothing  in  the  West  that  could  in  any  way 
take  its  place  or  compare  with  its  delicate  white 
translucent  body  and  liquid  glaze.  Great  efforts 
were  naturally  made  in  Europe  throughout  the 
seventeenth  century  to  discover  the  secret  of 
making  it.  One  of  the  three1  early  successes  in 
solving  the  secret  was  the  "  soft  paste  "  produced  in 
1  The  other  two  were  at  Dresden  and  Florence. 

143 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

1740  or  thereabouts  at  Vincennes  and  a  little  later 
at  Sevres. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  this  soft  paste 
is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  true  porcelain,  though 
it  is  a  very  effective  counterfeit,  with  the  general 
outward  appearance  and  much  of  the  charm  of  the 
real  porcelain  body.  The  Chinese  material  was 
derived  from  china  stone  and  china  clay l ;  the 
constituents  of  hard  felspar  and  quartz  were  ex- 
ceedingly hard  and  required  firing  at  a  very  high 
temperature.  The  new  imitation  was  an  artificial 
amalgam  composed  of  fine  white  clay  highly  refined 
and  a  glassy  flux ;  in  other  words,  we  may  say  that 
this  soft  paste  was  a  fused  combination  of  white 
clay  and  glass. 

Though  it  made  a  beautiful  substitute  for  the 
true  porcelain,  it  had  two  drawbacks.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  very  brittle  when  made,  but  this  was 
not  of  extreme  importance.  Its  great  drawback  was 
the  difficulty  of  firing  it  successfully,  the  operation 
resulting  in  a  considerable  number  of  expensively 
decorated  pieces  being  spoilt  in  the  kiln.  Owing 
to  the  glassy  mixture  in  its  body  it  fused  quickly 
at  a  low  temperature,  and  in  exposure  to  the  fire 

1  China  clay  is  the  result  of  the  decomposition  of  felspar,  and 
is  found  in  the  form  of  a  whitish  clay.  China  stone  is  a  form  of 
granite,  a  felspar  with  some  amount  of  quartz. 

144 


PERFUME  BURNER  XIX  15 


Gouthiere 


POT  POURRI  VASE  XVIII  162 

Shires  Porcelain 


PORCELAIN 

it  was  difficult  in  practice  to  strike  the  exact  degree 
of  heat  between  which  the  fixture  would  fuse  and 
so  combine,  and  the  very  slightly  greater  degree 
at  which  it  would  melt  or  lose  its  shape.  So  that 
when  the  hard  paste  was  secured  in  France,  the 
production  of  the  beautiful  soft  paste  was  gradually 
discarded  on  purely  economic  grounds. 

From  what  has  just  been  said  it  becomes  easier 
to  understand  many  of  the  fine  qualities  for  which 
the  French  soft  paste  china  is  valued.  Of  these 
qualities  colour  is  and  always  must  be  one  of  the 
most  prominent.  Indeed,  colour,  qua  colour,  is 
pre-eminently  the  true  decoration  of  porcelain. 
As  enamel  on  china  it  takes  the  translucence  and 
radiance  of  the  porcelain  ground  itself,  and  thus 
the  whole  obtains  its  wonderful  unity  of  fibre  and 
expression.  Colour  is  the  crowning  triumph  and 
glory  of  the  old  Chinese  porcelains,  whose  surpassing 
excellence  in  this  respect  has  never  been  equalled 
or  nearly  approached  by  European  potters. 

•  Now  it  so  happens  that  colour  and  its  development 
are  greatly  assisted  and  brought  out  by  the  nature 
of  the  body  of  soft  paste ;  and  it  is  owing  to  this 
that  the  pdte  tendre  of  Sevres  easily  comes  second 
to  the  Chinese  porcelains  in  qualities  of  translucence 
and  fusion  with  the  glaze.  This  peculiar  adaptability 
of  the  soft  paste  body  to  bring  about  a  fine  colour 

K  145 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

result  is  due  to  the  glassy  nature  of  its  body  that 
agrees  so  well  with  its  own  glassy  coloured  enamels, 
producing  at  the  same  time  not  only  clarity  of  tint 
but  also  a  soft  fusion  of  the  coloured  enamel  with 
the  surrounding  white  glaze.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  combined  results  here  described  could 
not  be  obtained  upon  the  celebrated  hard  paste 
porcelain  that  was  being  contemporaneously  pro- 
duced at  Dresden,  nor  yet  in  the  intensely  hard 
paste  of  Sevres,  manufactured  towards  the  close  of 
Louis  XV.'s  reign.  The  enamel  colouring  of  these 
looks  hard  by  comparison,  thin  and  opaque  in 
appearance,  and  will  by  no  means  fuse  softly  into 
the  white  glaze  but  rather  has  a  look  of  being  stuck 
thereupon. 

This  defect  was  really  inherent  in  the  harder 
ground,  and  can  easily  be  understood  with  a  word 
of  explanation.  The  light  firing  that  the  com- 
position of  the  highly  fusible  glassy  enamels  of  the 
pate  tendre  rendered  necessary  was  not  enough  to 
fasten  the  colours  upon  the  enamel  ground  of  the 
hard  paste;  and  so  a  modified  enamel  had  to  be  used 
that  was  at  once  much  thinner  in  body  and  con- 
tained a  larger  proportion  of  the  pure  opaque 
colouring  matter.  And  with  this  modified  enamel 
body  it  was  impossible  any  longer  to  lay  the 
colour  in  rich  impasto  or  to  run  it  on  in  the  old 
146 


PORCELAIN 

liquid  way.  These  rather  technical  explanations  aid 
us  to  appreciate  the  delicate  pate  tendre  porcelain, 
and  having  stated  them  something  may  now  be 
said  of  the  collection  at  Hertford  House  from  a 
more  general  standpoint. 

In  its  way  the  collection  is  almost  unique.  So 
great  an  authority  as  M.  Auscher,  the  Director  of 
the  Sevres  factory  from  1879  to  1889,  assures  us 
in  his  luminous  book  on  French  porcelain  that 
"  the  most  glorious  period  of  soft  paste  porcelain  at 
Sevres — viz.  1756-1769 — can  only  be  seen  to  per- 
fection in  the  collections  of  the  King  of  England, 
Hertford  House,  and  some  of  the  Rothschilds." 
And  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  of  these  the 
Wallace  Collection  is  generally  accepted  as  being 
the  finest. 

This  golden  epoch  of  French  porcelain  is  also 
essentially  the  period  of  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
when  her  artistic  influence  was  pre-eminent.  Though 
it  appears  she  took  no  special  interest  in  china 
during  its  earlier  development  at  St  Cloud,  Chantilly 
or  at  Vincennes,  directly  the  transfer  of  the  works 
from  Vincennes  to  Sevres  was  suggested  to  her,  she 
was  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  the  scheme  and  the 
operating  force  in  the  re-establishment  and  equip- 
ment of  the  works ;  and  it  should  be  added  that  her 
wise  patronage  and  direction  here  was  but  a  con- 

147 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

tinuation  of  what  she  was  so  conspicuously  doing  in 
other  directions  for  the  art  of  France. 

This  activity  of  the  Marquise  and  the  rare  taste 
that  directed  it  has  been  but  very  sparely  recognised  ; 
so  it  is  interesting  to  quote  this  tribute  from  so  high 
an  authority  as  the  late  Lady  Dilke : — 

"  The  quality  in  her  nature  which  led  her  to 
reject  all  but  the  most  perfect  and  distinguished 
work,  coupled  with  her  definite  apprehensions  of 
style  enabled  her,  during  the  twenty  years  of  her 
reign,  to  contribute  in  no  unworthy  fashion  to  the 
progress  of  the  applied  arts.  She  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  those  who,  by  born  instinct,  can  more 
than  match  the  calculations  of  those  who  have  '  the 
right  to  judge,'  and  her  death  in  1764  deprived 
the  great  group  of  artists  employed  by  the  Crown 
of  a  court  of  appeal  whose  decisions  were  ruled  by 
a  taste  finished  to  the  point  of  genius."  l 

Her  activity  in  establishing  the  new  works  at 
Sevres  was  enormous.  Though  the  old  staff  of 
Vincennes,  including  the  chemist  Hellow  and 
Duplessis  the  sculptor,  were  retained ;  she  obtained 
large  grants  from  the  King  and  gave  a  new  impetus 
and  new  standards  to  an  enlarged  staff  of  experts. 

The  pot-pourri  vase  (XVIII.,  162)  of  about  this 

1  ' '  French  Decoration  and  Furniture  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century." 

148 


PORCELAIN 

date,  with  its  richly  balanced  fluent  form  and  panels 
of  Boucher  decorations,  is  a  miracle  of  the  potter's 
skill :  his  skill  to  pass  successfully  through  the 
furnace  this  elaborate,  pierced  and  fretted  form  with 
its  thinness  of  body  and  liability  to  collapse  or  twist 
out  of  shape  in  the  firing.  Exquisite  and  simple 
form  reached  its  height  during  this  time  and  the 
satiny  sheen  of  the  glazes,  with  their  remarkable, 
true,  even  surfaces,  became  perfected. 

In  1757  the  most  famous  of  the  colour  grounds, 
obtained  from  a  precipitate  of  gold,  was  developed, 
and  brought  to  perfection.  This  is  the  "  Rose 
Pompadour"  glaze,  which  throughout  the  catalogue 
is  called  by  its  other  and  more  misleading  title  of 
"  Rose  Du  Barry."  M.  Auscher  tells  us  it  was  very 
difficult  to  produce,  since  when  fired  a  little  highly 
it  became  a  dirty  yellow ;  or  when  fired  a  little  too 
low,  an  unpleasant  brown.  There  are  three  very 
fine  examples  of  this  rose  ground  here  in  the 
jardinieres  (XII.,  118,  146,  154),  all  alike  remarkable 
for  a  striking  simplicity  of  general  aspect  and  form, 
and  for  the  absence  of  trivial  embellishment.  This 
period  is  especially  distinguished  as  that  of  the 
coloured  ground-glazes.  It  has  the  seldom-used 
Bleu  du  Roi — usually  softened,  after  Chinese  pre- 
cedent, with  gilt  tracery — as  we  may  see  in  the 
important  vases  (XVIII.,  159,  XVII.,  21),  and  in  the 
149 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

tall  companion  (XVII.,  25)  of  the  latter,  with  its 
compact  form  and  graceful  handles.  Two  of  these 
also  show  in  parts  the  celebrated  "  apple-green " 
ground-glaze,  as  does  more  fully  the  bottle-shaped 
vase  (XII.,  152).  There  is  also  a  rare  yellow  ground 
colour  on  it  characteristic  of  this  class. 

Still  more  important  is  the  deservedly  popular 
"  turquoise  blue "  glaze,  so  much  in  evidence  in 
this  collection.  This  glaze  was  occasionally  and 
most  successfully  decorated  only  by  chased  gilding 
of  elaborate  richness,  but  more  usually  delicately 
executed  Boucher  panels  were  added.  There  are 
cups  and  saucers  of  this  kind  here,  and  their 
air  of  sumptuous  opulence  is  remarkable. 

These  panels,  or  "reserves,"  or  cartels  as  they 
are  described  in  the  catalogue,  appear  on  French 
porcelain  about  the  time  of  the  establishment  of 
the  factory  at  Sevres,  and  are  henceforward  a 
persistent  feature  on  that  china.  At  first  they  are 
lightly  decorated  with  birds  or  with  flowers  painted 
on  the  white  porcelain  background ;  a  little  later 
with  the  amorini  subjects  made  fashionable  by 
Boucher.  Then  we  get  the  fuller  Watteau  type 
of  subject  inserted  with  the  white  picture  ground 
entirely  covered,  and,  last  of  all.  as  the  classic 
motive  came  in,  the  mythological  painting  appears 
treated  also  entirely  in  colour. 

150 


PORCELAIN 

This  change  of  panel  subject  and  disappearance 
of  its  white  ground  is  of  general  assistance  to 
indicate  the  period  of  a  piece. 

In  examining  the  china  at  Hertford  House 
nothing  is  more  noticeable  than  the  very  partial 
way  the  white  porcelain  ground  is  at  first  allowed 
to  appear,  and  then,  in  the  more  costly  and  typical 
pieces,  disappears  altogether  about  1770  or  soon 
after.  This  treatment  of  china  is  opposed  to  the 
taste  and  practice  of  other  countries,  particularly 
to  that  of  China  ;  in  these  cases  the  white  porcelain 
played  a  conspicuous  part  with  the  deliberate  intent 
of  displaying  the  characteristic  qualities  of  the 
beautiful  material  itself.  The  French,  however, 
were  aiming  more  and  more,  as  time  went  on,  at  an 
effect  of  richness  and  elaboration  of  the  parts,  alike 
in  their  furniture  and  interior  decoration ;  and  the 
result  in  their  porcelain  is  that  it  begins  to  have 
an  exceeding  richness  towards  the  close  of  the 
period  that  followed  the  death  of  the  Marquise 
de  Pompadour. 

The  decorated  panels  we  have  been  noticing  were 
enclosed  by  gilded  borders,  the  best  of  which  are 
etched  and  chased  to  add  to  their  significance,  and 
the  gilt  itself — never  fired — has  a  fat  appearance, 
being  fastened,  as  Sir  William  Burton  explains,  on 
a  bed  of  japanner's  varnish.  As  the  encroaching 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

elaboration  of  the  parts  proceeded,  the  beautiful 
ground-glazes  on  the  pieces  had  to  go,  and  the  gilt 
surrounds  to  the  reserves  also  became  replaced  by 
elaborate  raised  ornament,  as  we  see  encircling  the 
panels  in  the  vase  of  1775  (XVII.,  21). 

In  the  vase  just  mentioned  appears  a  new  feature. 
This  consists  of  the  beads  of  coloured  enamel  laid 
on  in  separate  drops,  often  applied  over  a  gold  foil. 
This  decoration  gave  to  pieces  on  which  it  was  used 
the  name  of  "Jewelled  Sevres."  The  Jewelled 
Sevres  of  a  few  years  later  was  the  most  costly  of 
all  the  soft  paste  of  Sevres,  and  suffers  from  a 
painful  access  of  elaborate  detail.  With  all  its 
pi'ofuse  ornament,  it  has  little  or  no  seduction  or 
charm. 

One  of  the  best  examples  of  this  type — though 
it  is  catalogued  as  slightly  earlier — is  the  vase 
(XX.,  7)  with  surmounting  crown  that  was  part 
of  the  service  ordered  from  Sevres  by  Catherine  II. 
of  Russia,  Most  of  this  heavily  ornamented  type 
made  its  appearance  after  1780. 

As  some  emphasis  has  been  laid  on  the  defect 
of  these  last  porcelains,  it  may  be  added  that  the 
other  reproach  to  the  reputation  of  this  beautiful 
pdte  tendre  of  France  came  through  its  application 
to  furniture.  Both  the  material,  its  colour  and  its 
very  nature  were  against  this  employment.  Strictly 


JARDINIERE  XII  146 

Sevres  Porcelain 


s! 


PORCELAIN 

speaking,  it  is  not  even  qualified  to  play  a  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  decoration  of  a  room  at  all. 
Its  fragile  daintiness  and  caprice,  alluring  as  the 
private  appeal  of  a  mood,  render  it  unsuitable  for 
general  employment  and  liable  to  leap  out  unduly 
from  the  whole  unless  the  walls  be  keyed  up  to  the 
pitch  of  la  decoration  claire.  It  was  this  high  pitch 
which  caused  its  absolute  failure  when  applied  in 
the  shape  of  plaques  against  low-toned  woods — as 
was  attempted  too  often  towards  the  end  of  Louis 
XV.'s  reign  and  later.  That  it  ever  was  so  used  by 
the  great  decorative  artists  of  that  time  can  only 
be  explained  by  its  popularity  and  the  desire  of 
the  wealthy  to  have  it  used  wherever  the  novelty 
could  be  adapted. 

As  a  counsel  of  perfection  it  may  be  said  that 
these  enamelled  porcelains,  to  be  fully  appreciated, 
must  be  enjoyed  close  at  hand  for  the  sake  of  their 
separate  and  isolated  charm.  They  should  be  taken 
in  the  hand,  just  as  a  miniature,  or  a  flower  or 
a  jewel  is  taken  ;  and  thus  at  close  quarters  the 
sensuous  body,  beauty  and  exotic  charm  of  these 
flowerlike  objects  yield  the  delight  that  is  their 
legitimate  offering. 
*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Before  concluding  this  chapter,   a   word   should 
be  said  about  the  large  collection   of  majolica,  of 

153 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

Italian  and  Hispano-Mauresque  lustred  ware,  which 
fills  several  cases  in  Gallery  III.  The  majority 
of  these  pieces  date  from  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
may  fairly  be  said  to  represent  the  best  that 
European  potters  could  do  at  this  time.  And  it 
is  generally  admitted  that  this  kind  of  pottery,  with 
its  opaque  glazing  and  showy  decoration,  reached 
its  greatest  perfection  in  Italy  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  name  "  Majolica "  is  said  to  be 
derived  from  the  island  of  Majorca,  an  early  seat 
of  its  manufacture,  but  to  be  able  to  do  any  justice 
to  it  we  must  remember  that  pottery  differs  from 
porcelain  not  merely  in  degree  but  in  kind. 

We  have  already  examined  the  composition  of 
porcelain,  and  we  must  now  show  how  it  differs 
from  Majolica  pottery.  The  body  of  the  last  was  a 
somewhat  unrefined  clay,  its  coarse  dark  nature  being 
disguised  by  a  coating  of  stanniferous  enamel.  From 
a  distance  and  from  the  outside  this  pottery  looks 
showy  and  handsome  in  a  barbaric  way ;  but  it  has 
fatal  deficiencies.  The  enamel  covering  on  so  friable 
a  base  could  not  be  so  hard  an  enamel ;  it  easily 
chipped  at  the  edges  of  the  piece  and  showed  its 
coarse  ground.  It  would  not  stand  rapid  changes  of 
temperature,  and  its  colours  are  heavy  and  opaque 
and  broadly  applied. 

Half-way  between  these  enamelled  faiences  and 

154 


PORCELAIN 

porcelain  comes  the  celebrated  stoneware  of  Germany 
and  the  Rheinland,  of  which  one  or  two  examples  may 
be  found  in  the  same  gallery.  This  stoneware  was 
made  of  a  moderately  whitish  body,  hard  and  close 
in  texture.  It  was  durable  and  deservedly  popular, 
but  it  cannot  stand  comparison  for  a  moment  with  the 
true  porcelain  of  China  or  the  soft  paste  of  Sevres, 
beside  which  all  pottery  must  seem  clumsy  and  gross. 


155 


XI     . 
THE   ARMOURY 

To  most  people,  I  suppose,  the  fascination  of  arms 
and  armour  lies  in  its  appeal  to  the  historic  sense. 
Few  objects  are  more  potent  to  aid  us  in  visualising 
the  days  of  old  than  a  suit  of  armour  which  gives  us 
the  whole  external  appearance  of  a.  fellow-man.  It  has 
a  completeness  and  actuality  which  cannot  fail  to 
stir  our  imagination,  and  it  makes  real  to  us,  as 
nothing  else  can,  those  desperate  combats  of  which 
we  read  in  our  history  books. 

It  was  not,  however,  merely  for  its  historic  interest 
that  Sir  Richard  Wallace  got  together  his  great 
collection  of  European  arms  and  armour.  His  aim 
was  not  to  illustrate  the  various  armaments  which 
succeeding  generations  had  evolved  for  purposes  of 
offence  and  defence,  but  rather  to  demonstrate  the 
beauty  of  the  armourer's  art.  A  similar  consideration 
must  have  ruled  his  predecessor,  Lord  Hertford,  who 
acquired  a  great  portion  of  the  Oriental  armoury. 
The  contents  of  this  section,  however,  are  all  of  late 

156 


THE    ARMOURY 

date,  belonging  to  the  seventeenth,  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries,  and  consequently  do  not  re- 
present the  finest  and  most  resplendent  period  of 
Eastern  armour.  Moreover,  as  Sir  Guy  Laking 
points  out,  "  there  is  always  the  prejudice  against 
the  weapon  of  the  Orient,  that  costliness  of  material 
is  ever  uppermost  over  the  fertility  of  design  and 
fineness  of  workmanship." 

Notwithstanding  many  fine  specimens  in  this  sec- 
tion, it  is  then  the  European  examples  which  give 
high  distinction  to  the  armoury  at  Hertford  House. 
The  earliest  weapon  shown  is  the  Scandinavian 
sword  (VII.,  1)  dating  from  the  ninth  or  early  tenth 
century,  and  in  the  same  case  will  be  found  a  series 
of  Continental  swords  ranging  from  the  eleventh  to 
the  early  sixteenth  century.  Other  cases  in  the 
same  gallery  contain  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  century 
helmets,  of  which  the  most  famous  is  the  Tilting 
Helmet  (78),  possibly  the  only  head-piece  in  the 
collection  that  can  be  identified  as  being  an  example 
of  English  workmanship.  A  similar  helmet  of  the 
same  period  and  form,  in  St  George's  Chapel,  at 
Windsor,  is  said  by  tradition  to  have  been  worn  by 
Henry  VI. 

But  perhaps  the  most  imposing  exhibit  in  Gallery 
VII.  is  the  Suit  of  Tilting  Armour  (327)  made  at 
Augsburg  about  1500  to  1520  for  use  in  the  "jousts  of 

157 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

peace."  Augsburg,  of  course,  was  a  famous  armorial 
centre,  and  this  fine  suit  bears  the  guildmark  of  the 
city  stamped  at  the  border  of  the  elbow  plates. 
Radiating  fan-shaped  fluting  constitutes  the  principal 
decoration  of  this  suit,  as  it  also  does  of  another  Suit 
of  Armour  (540)  near  by,  which,  though  much  re- 
stored, gives  an  excellent  idea  of  the  war  harness  of 
a  German  knight  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century. 

These  suits,  however,  are  plain  and  business-like 
in  comparison  with  the  enriched  armour  in  the  next 
gallery.  First  we  may  direct  attention  to  the 
German  mid-sixteenth  century  Three-quarter  Suit  of 
Armour  (VII.,  374),  decorated  with  sunk  vertical 
bands  and  borders  of  bright  steel  on  a  blackened 
ground  ;  and  then  pass  on  to  the  still  more  gorgeous, 
though  a  little  earlier  Three-quarter  Suit  (VI.,  380), 
also  of  German  workmanship.  What  is  interesting 
to  note  here  is  how  closely  this  war  suit  resembles 
the  civil  dress  of  the  period.  It  is  decorated  with 
slashed  and  bornbe  alternate  bands,  etched  and  gilt, 
with  a  formal  design  of  scrolls,  etc.,  the  whole 
presenting  a  very  rich  appearance.  Although 
slashes  were  a  feature  of  the  civil  dress,  their 
introduction  was  a  playful  allusion  to  the  cuts 
received  in  battle.  "  In  this  suit  they  are  faithfully 
represented,"  says  Sir  Guy  Laking,  who  also  points 

158 


THE   ARMOURY 

out  that  "  this  repousse  puffed  and  slashed  ornamen- 
tation was  one  of  the  first  attempts  to  decorate  the 
surface  by  embossing  from  the  back." 

Another  superb  example  of  this  method  of  decora- 
tion is  the  Half  Suit  of  Armour  (VI.,  428)  which  is 
Spanish  in  style  though  probably  of  mid-sixteenth 
century  German  workmanship.  All  the  borders  and 
panels  are  etched  and  gilt,  while  inside  the  border 
is  an  embossed  escalloped  edging.  Note  also  the 
trefoil  ornament  embossed  on  the  plates  of  the 
thigh-pieces.  The  style  of  this  profuse  decoration 
is  akin  to  that  of  Sigismund  Wolf,  the  famous 
armourer  of  Landshut  who  made  suits  for  Philip  II. 
of  Spain. 

Richly  decorated  again  is  the  Complete  Suit  oj 
Armour  (VI.,  435)  made  by  the  English  armourer 
Jacob  Topf,  or  Jacobi,  about  1575.  From  the 
album  of  this  armourer's  original  drawings,  now  at 
the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  South  Kensington, 
we  know  that  this  suit,  illustrated  therein,  was 
made  for  Sir  Thomas  Sackville,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Dorset.  It  is  a  unique  example  of  the  art  of  Jacob 
Topf,  so  admirably  preserved  that  the  gilding  and 
the  black  pigment  with  which  it  is  relieved  have 
almost  the  same  brilliancy  as  when  the  suit  first  left 
the  hand  of  the  master.  No  pains  have  been  spared 
in  the  ornamentation.  The  scroll  design,  running  in 

159 


THE    WALLACE    COLLECTION 

bands  and  borders  over  the  granulated  groundwork, 
is  deeply  etched  and  partly  gilt,  while  even  the 
plain  surfaces  have  an  appropriate  enrichment  of 
colour.  These  surfaces  have  been  oxidised  to  a  rich 
russet-brown,  a  characteristic  which  causes  the  suit 
to  be  an  example  of  what  has  been  called  "  purple 
armour." 

So  far  we  have  only  considered  examples  of 
Teutonic  workmanship,  and,  fine  as  these  are,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  they  represent  the  highest 
achievement  in  European  armour.  Many  competent 
judges  hold  that  for  this  we  must  go  to  Italy,  the 
home  and  birthplace  of  practically  all  that  is  most 
beautiful  in  the  arts  and  crafts  of  Christian  Europe. 
Of  all  the  armourers  of  Italy,  not  even  excepting 
those  of  Milan,  it  is  probably  the  masters  of  Ferrara 
who  have  secured  the  widest  fame.  And  of  all  the 
wonderful  contents  of  the  Hertford  House  armoury 
few  will  hesitate  to  give  first  place  to  the  magnificent 
Half  Suit  of  Armour  (VI.,  483),  known  as  that  of 
Alfonso  II.,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  and  attributed  to  the 
sixteenth-century  armourer,  Lucio  Picinino.  A 
whole  volume  might  be  written  about  this  elaborately 
decorated  suit,  which  contains  every  possible  form 
of  decoration  on  metal.  To  begin  with,  the  whole 
surface  of  the  suit  is  russeted ;  the  entire  design  is 
worked  out  by  the  most  cunningly  graduated  em- 
160 


THE   ARMOURY 

bossing.  It  is  chased,  enriched  with  fine  gold  and 
silver  damascening,  plating  and  overlaying.  An 
arabesque  design  flows  throughout  the  suit,  knitting 
together  the  various  panels  into  a  coherent  whole. 
On  the  breastplate  fruit,  flowers  and  minor  figures 
lead  up  to  the  dominating  figure  of  the  God  of  War ; 
while  on  the  blackplate  we  see  "  Hercules  strangling 
the  Nemaean  lion,"  supported  by  figures  emblematic 
of  the  arts  and  sciences.  The  effect  of  the  whole  is 
so  dazzling,  yet  so  harmonious,  that  we  do  not 
wonder  so  competent  a  judge  as  Sir  Samuel  Rush 
Meyrick  should  have  pronounced  this  to  be  "  without 
doubt,  one  of  the  most  splendid  suits  in  Europe,  if, 
indeed,  it  be  not  entitled  to  pre-eminence."  More- 
over, it  is  in  an  admirable  state  of  preservation,  and 
unfortunately  the  same  cannot  be  said  for  another 
half  suit  (473),  also  attributed  to  Lucio  Picinino. 
In  this  last  the  original  russet  surface  and  gold 
damascening  have  perished,  and  the  present  aspect 
of  brightened  steel  is  the  result  of  overcleaning,  and 
probably  also  of  damage  by  fire. 

In  the  same  gallery  is  the  sixteenth-century 
Milanese  Oval  Shield  (632),  showing  "  Scipio  receiv- 
ing the  keys  of  Carthage,"  another  masterpiece  of 
high-relief  embossing,  chased,  richly  plated  and 
damascened  with  precious  metals,  and  with  all  the 
exposed  surface  of  the  iron  russeted.  At  the  top 
L  161 


THE    WALLACE   COLLECTION 

are  introduced  the  monogram  and  interlaced  crescent 
moons  of  Diane  De  Poitiers.  "  This  justly  ranks  as 
one  of  the  finest  pageant  shields  in  existence,"  says 
Sir  Guy  Laking.  "  The  famous  shield  in  his  Majesty's 
collection  at  Windsor  and  the  Giorgio  Ghisi  shield 
in  the  Rothschild  bequest  at  the  British  Museum 
may  possibly  have  a  prior  place  as  regards  quality 
and  technique  of  workmanship;  but  in  that  alone, 
for  they  lack  that  sense  of  dignity  and  completeness 
of  design  which  has  been  attained  in  the  shield 
under  discussion." 

Another  fine  embossed  shield  (66 1)  was  once 
thought  to  have  belonged  to  the  Emperor  Charles  V., 
but  is  now  attributed  to  a  French  armourer  of  the 
late  sixteenth  century. 

Passing  by  several  items  of  historic  interest — 
among  which  we  may  note  the  dagger  (669)  given 
to  Henri  IV.  by  the  City  of  Paris  on  his  marriage 
with  Marie  de  Medicis,  and  the  sixteenth-century 
Bavarian  black  and  gold  suit  (851)  connected  by 
tradition  with  the  Elector  Joseph  and  stolen  by 
Napoleon  from  the  arsenal  at  Munich — a  final  word 
must  be  said  about  the  Complete  War  Harness  for 
Man  and  Horse  (VI.,  620),  which  is  an  outstanding 
feature  of  this  armoury.  It  is  French  in  style,  and 
probably  in  origin,  dating  from  about  14-60-1480, 
and  has  been  restored  in  some  minor  particulars. 

103 


THE   ARMOURY 

But  then  "  an  equestrian  harness  for  man  and  horse 
of  this  early  period  is  of  the  greatest  rarity  "  ;  and 
one  entirely  free  from  restoration  is  unknown  even 
to  so  eminent  an  expert  as  Sir  Guy  Laking.  The 
mounted  warrior  shown  with  uplifted  sword-arm  is 
distinctly  impressive,  but  this  pose  was  adopted  not 
so  much  for  dramatic  effect  as  to  demonstrate  the 
flexibility  of  the  armour. 

In  conclusion,  while  neglecting  perforce  many 
objects  of  interest  in  this  and  other  sections, 
attention  may  be  drawn  to  the  Venetian  Bronze 
Cannon  (V.,  1345),  decorated  with  figures  cast  in 
high  relief,  dated  1688  and  bearing  the  signature 
of  John  Marzarolli.  It  is  accounted  a  masterpiece 
of  the  bronze-founder's  art,  and  the  symbolical 
figure  of  "Jupiter  hurling  thunderbolts  at  the 
Titans"  is  an  appropriate  allegory  of  what  the 
maker  doubtless  hoped  his  weapon  would  accomplish. 


163 


INDEX 


AGATA,    Francesco  da  Sant', 

103 
Armour,   156 

BELLOTTO,  43 
Berain,  Jean,   128 
Bologna,  Giovanni  da,   105 
Bonheur,  Rosa,  98 
Bonington,  Richard  Parkes,95 
Boucher,  Fra^ois,  84,   123 
Boudin,  101 
Boulle,  Andre  Charles,    124, 

128 

Bronzes,   105  seq. 
Brouwer,  Adriaen,  60 

CAFFIERI,  Jacques,  132 

Canaletto,  43 

Cayot,  Augustin,  113 

Champaigne,  Philippe  de,  73 

Cima,  36 

Claude  Lorrain,  73 

Clodion,  no,  112 

Clouet,  71 

Colour,  92 

Corot,  99 

Coustou,  no 

Couture,  96 

Coy  se  vox,  108 

Cressent,  130 

Crivelli,  36 

Cuyp,  67 

DASSON,  135 
Decamps,  96-98 


Delacroix,  92 

Delaroche,  96 

Diaz,  98 

Dou,  62 

Dupre,  99 

Dumont,  87 

Dyck,  Sir  Anthony  Van,  48 

FALCONET,  112 
Foppa,  Vincenzo,  37 
Fragonard,  84 
Furniture,  115 

GAINSBOROUGH,  81 
Gericault,  96 
Girardon,  109 
Goujon,  1 08 
Gouthiere,   138 
Greuze,  86 
Gros,  Baron,  90 
Guardi,  43 

HACKAERT, 
Hals,  50 

Hertford  family,  l<)seq. 
Hertford  House,  29 
Hobbema,  69 
Holbein,  72 
Hooch,  Pieter  de,  64 
Hoppner,  22 
Houdon,  in 

IMPRESSIONISM,  41 
Ingres,  91 
Isabey,  101 


INDEX 


JORDAENS,  48 

LANCRET,  76 
Largilliere,  73 
Le  Brun,  Vigee,  87 
Limoges  enamels,  14 
Luini,  38 

MAES,  65 

Majolica,  154 

Mawson,  24 

Meissonier,  Jean  Louis  Ernest, 

97 

Meissonnier,  Juste  Aurele,  132 
Metsu,  64 

Miniatures,  14,  72,  85,  87 
Murillo,  58 

NATTIER,  77 

Neer,  Aart  van  der,  66 

Noord,  65 

OEBEN,  134 
Ormolu,  125 
Ostade,  Adriaen  van,  62 
Ostade,  Isack  van,  62 

PATER,  76 

Pompadour,  Marquise  de,  134, 

147 

Pigalle,  no 
Pilon,  1 08 
Porcelain,  140 
Potter,  Paul,  66 
Pottery,  154 


Poussin,  73 
Prud'hon,  96 

REMBRANDT,  51-55 
Reynolds,  18,  78-81 
Riesener,  135-138 
Romney,  83 

Rousseau,  Theodore,  99 
Rubens,  45 
Ruisdael,  68 

SAUNIER,  121 
Sevres,  141 
Sienese  school,  34 
Snyders,  48 
Steen,  Jan,  65 

TAPESTRIES,  123 
Taste,  90 
Teniers,  61 
Terborch,  63 
Thomire,  139 
Titian,  38 
Torrigiano,   106 
Troyon,  100 
Turner,  102 

VELASQUEZ,  55-58 
Velde,  Adriaen  van  de,  67 
Vernet,  Horace,  87 

WALLACE,  Sir  Richard,  26-28 
Wallace,  Lady,  13,  28,  31 
Watteau,  74-76 
Wouwermann,  68 


166 


A     000915144     0 


